A 40-year-old man and his partner were arrested in Tajueco, Spain, accused of killing an employee of their restaurant in 2023 and hiding his body
The Spanish police have solved a macabre disappearance case turned into crime thanks to an unusual piece of evidence: images from Google Maps. After a year of searches, the remains of a man of Cuban origins, passed away in 2023were found in recent days near the parish church of Andaluz, a small municipality in Berlanga de Duero district, in the province of Soria. The discovery kicked off a complex investigation which led to the arrest of two people, including the manager of a bar known in the country as “the wolf of Tajueco”, and his partner, also of Caribbean origins.
The Street View shots were decisive: in via Norte, in the tiny town of Tajueco, a village of just 100 inhabitants, Google’s cameras immortalized the 40-year-old man while loading the dismembered remains of the car into the trunk person killed. Along with the images, wiretaps between the suspect and his partner provided damning evidence, leading to their indictment for crime and concealment of the body.
The person killed
The man killed, whose remains are still partly missing, worked as a waiter in the bar managed by the two arrested. His had disappeared reported by her brother in 2023, after months of vain attempts to contact him. The complaint had triggered searches by the National Police, who initially found no clues of a possible crime crime. The turning point came recently, with the discovery of the first and subsequent remains Street View image acquisition.
After identifying the two suspects thanks to footage that showed them carrying the remains in the trunk of the car, the authorities intensified their investigations by collecting other evidence, including numerous wiretaps. The checks made it possible to clarify the connection between the person killed and his alleged perpetrators, leading to the arrest of the 40-year-old and his partner.
The motive for the crime remains a mystery, but the authorities are proceeding with interrogations to shed light on the relationships between the person killed and the defendants. According to initial reconstructions, the man was taken out and dismembered before being transported to multiple locations to hide the body. Satellite images and digital technology proved crucial in a case that seemed destined to remain unanswered. The story shocked the small community of Tajueco and caused widespread outcry, underlining the increasingly important role of technology in supporting criminal investigations.
