Google Street View may have helped solve a gruesome crime

[phillynews215]

Credit: Google/El Pais

• Google Street View images may form critical evidence in a homicide investigation.
• One of the two key images in the case shows a man in a small Spanish village appearing to load a suspicious bundle into his car.
• Two suspects are in custody and have been charged with homicide, one year after the victim was reported missing.

Since the recognizable cars carrying 360-degree cameras were first deployed in 2007, the internet has been awash with curious Google Street View pictures. Few, however, can be as potentially consequential as this one from Tajueco, Spain, taken in October. The Street View image has been cited as evidence in a homicide investigation, according to the English language version of the Spanish news publication El Pais.

Capturing pictures of the tiny Spanish village for the first time since the Street View project began, one Google photo shows a man leaning over the open trunk of a red car. The trunk appears to contain something wrapped in a white package, the shape of which certainly raises an eyebrow. Spanish authorities allege that the image is linked to the disappearance of a 33-year-old Cuban man who was a resident of the city of Soria in the same Spanish state.




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