Google Maps helped Spanish investigators solve a year-long murder mystery by capturing the moment a man placed a suspected corpse in a car.
Police in the northern region of Castile and Leon began an investigation in November 2023 when someone reported a male relative missing.
Officers arrested a woman who was the missing man's partner and another man who was her ex-partner in Soria province on November 12. the police said in a statement on Wednesday.
Investigators then raided the suspects' homes and searched their vehicles, but also stumbled upon an unexpected lead in their search for more evidence.
These were “location app images” where they “identified a vehicle that may have been used during the crime,” the statement said.
Spanish media released a Google Maps Street View screenshot from October 2024 showing a man throwing an object covered in a white shroud into the trunk of a car in the village of Tahueca. It was the first time in 15 years that the car was in the city of Tahueca, BBC informed.
The images helped solve the case but were not “decisive,” police said.
Officials said another series of photos showed a blurred silhouette of a man carrying a large white package in a wheelbarrow, This was reported by the BBC.
A spokesman for the central government in Soria, Miguel Latorre, told public broadcaster RTVE that the man was presumed guilty.
Police said a badly decomposed human torso, believed to be the victim's, was found in a cemetery in Soria province this month. The daily newspaper El Pais reported that he is a 33-year-old Cuban.
The judge remanded the suspects in custody, and the investigation is ongoing.
Google technology has helped investigators make breakthroughs in cases before. In 2022, an Italian mob boss on the run for decades is arrested after his spotted on Google Maps.
In 2019, the remains of a man who had been missing for 22 years were finally found thanks to someone who tipped off his former Florida neighborhood. Google satellite images and noticed a car submerged in the lake.