Google Maps Provides Clue in Spanish Missing Person Case, Body Exhumed

Published: 12/19/2024, 10:36:53 PM EST

Google Maps Provides Clue in Spanish Missing Person Case, Body Exhumed — A man puts a human-sized package in the trunk of his car in Tajueco, Spain, in October 2024. (Google Maps)

Police in Spain have arrested two people in connection to a missing person case after detectives noticed a man loading a large bag in the trunk of a car in a Google Maps street view image.

A man and a woman from the quiet, tiny village of Tajueco, 120 miles north of the Spanish capital of Madrid, have been arrested under suspicion of killing and dismembering the missing man, police said in a Wednesday press release.

The missing man was a Cuban who arrived in the tiny village—population 56—last year.

A relative of the victim reported him missing in November last year after receiving suspicious messages from his phone.

According to the police statement, the victim and the relative had regular contact. But then one day, the victim sent messages saying said that had met a new girlfriend and that he would be moving to a different part of the country—and that he was getting rid of his phone.

Alarmed, the relative contacted the police and an investigation was launched.

By scouring Google Maps, detectives found a photo of a man putting a human-sized package wrapped in what looks to be white plastic in the trunk of his car in one of the town’s deserted streets in broad daylight. Police suspect the package to have been the missing person’s body.

The image, which still appears on Google Maps, was taken in October 2024. This was the first time that a Google Maps vehicle had passed through Tajueco to update the imagery of the village since November 2009, according to Google Maps data.

On Nov. 12, police arrested the girlfriend of the missing man, as well as another man who had been in a previous relationship with the woman. Searches were carried out at the homes of both detainees, police said.

On Dec. 11, and with the aid of advanced technical equipment, authorities were able to find the badly decomposed torso of a person in a cemetery in the nearby municipality of Soria. The Spanish National Police posted footage of the excavations on social media.

Police believe these may be the remains of the missing person.

The remains have been transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences in Sora for DNA analysis and identification.

The two suspects were arrested on charges of illegal detention aggravated by failure to provide information on the whereabouts of the missing person. The results of the forensic analysis of the excavated remains will determine whether murder charges will be added.

Locals told Spanish daily newspaper El País that the arrested man, 48-year-old Manuel Isla Gallardo, lived a rather secluded life.

“He was solitary, we didn’t hear him talk about his life, he worked in the bar and lately he seemed to be integrating,” they said.

Others said they had seen the image of the man on Google Maps a while ago.

“We didn’t imagine he was doing anything strange and we didn’t pay attention to it!”

“We didn’t think there could be a corpse in the photo of the trunk either.”