An astonishing series of Google Street View images – including one apparently showing a body being loaded into a car boot – may have helped solve a grisly village love triangle murder in Spain.
Remarkable pictures, captured by a passing Google camera car in the tiny hamlet of Tajueco, show a man in jeans stooped over a red car with a large white sack lying in the trunk.
In a chilling twist, a second set of images show a man in a similar outfit trundling a wheelbarrow down a hill carrying what appears to be a white bag – just yards from where the car was parked.
Spanish cops say the initial car pictures may have helped crack open the case of a missing husband, who is believed to have been killed and dismembered after he vanished last year.
The body of the unnamed Cuban victim, only referred to by his initials JLPO, was found in a nearby cemetery last week as police revealed they had been helped by Google Street View.
Investigators say it was these photos that helped them shift focus to the victim’s wife and her new partner, identified as Manuel Isla Gallardo, before wiretaps revealed their involvement in JLPO’s sudden disappearance.
A frame captured by the Google camera car shows a person dressed in dark clothing pushing a wheelbarrow carrying a large white package
The photo shows a man loading what appears to be a body bag into the boot of a red car, local media reports
The person, which can only be seen from a distance and is not visible in closer shots of the road, is located just around the corner from where the red car was parked
Photos still available online show a figure at the top of Calle las Eras, uploaded in October.
It is not clear exactly when the photos were taken.Â
Heading further up the road and out of the town, the figure suddenly disappears.
The outskirts of the village are dotted with farm buildings and gravel tracks, but the figure cannot be seen again.Â
Heading into the village, the Google car collecting the photos turns a corner, making it impossible to know where the figure went next.
But just off the road, a man in dark clothing is seen piling a white bag into the boot of a car.
Police say these pictures were key to helping them solve the mystery disappearance of victim ‘JLPO’, who was reported missing in November 2023, per El Pais.
The victim’s cousin, who lives in Zaragoza, reported the disappearance, saying they became suspicious when they started receiving weird WhatsApp messages from him.
They said JLPO told them that they had met a woman and planned to leave Spain and his phone behind.
The relative did not believe JLPO was talking to them and soon contacted the police.
The couple at the heart of the love triangle were arrested on November 12, 2024, after seeing the Street View images, though a motive is still being properly investigated.Â
It has been reported the victim found out about their affair and was illegally detained and killed by the couple sometime after.
The police investigations led them to a cemetery in nearby Andaluz, where they found ‘the torso in an advanced state of decomposition’ on December 11.
They said they were still looking for other parts of the body.Â
The Google Street View pictures show the red Rover car parked on the side of the road, with the boot open
The identification of the body found in the cemetery was complicated by the advanced decomposition of the remains, but police still assume they belong to the missing Cuban man
The photo shows a man loading what appears to be a body bag into the trunk of a red car
The investigation took police to various properties in Soria, a province of central Spain, and on a number of digs in the locality.
But they say the crucial lead was provided by a Google Street View image that showed what appeared to be a man loading a big bag into the boot of a car.
Investigators then turned their attention to 48-year-old Gallardo, who was reportedly running a bar in nearby Bayubas de Arriba at the time.
It is unclear who the individual loading the boot in the pictures is.
And it was not clear whether the figure who appeared to be holding a wheelbarrow was the same as the man loading a car.
The person, which can only be seen from a distance and is not visible in closer shots of the road, is located just around the corner from where the red car was parked.
Wiretaps revealed that both the wife and Gallardo were involved in disappearance of the man, but it has not been reported how this led investigators to the cemetery where the Cuban man’s remains were found.
They were arrested on November 12 and have remained in provisional custody since.
After the discovery of the men’s dismembered body, forensic experts investigated the burial site on the cemetery before transferring his remains to the Soria Institute of Legal Medicine for analysis.
The identification of the body was complicated by the advanced decomposition of the remains, but police still assume they belong to the missing Cuban man.
The cemetery in Andaluz has been sealed for days following the gruesome discovery.