A Google Street View image of a man loading a large white plastic bag into the trunk of his car has led to the arrest of two people on suspicion of murder.

The alleged crime took place in the sparsely populated Spanish province of Soria, in the northern region of Castile and León. Last week the dismembered body of a man was found in the cemetery of the 12-inhabitant village of Andaluz.

Police have arrested a Cuban woman, the deceased’s former partner. She is also the former wife of the other inmate, a local man.

The man’s remains were found in the cemetery of the municipality of Andaluz

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Both suspects are in prison, accused of being responsible for the disappearance and murder of a 32-year-old man a year ago identified as Jorge Luis Perez.

The defendant lives seven miles from Andaluz in the municipality of Tajueco with 50 inhabitants. The newspaper El País reported that “nothing ever happens there, and if something did happen, certainly no one would know about it, or so the alleged murderer must have thought when he stuffed a bundle in the trunk of his old burgundy Rover last October.” led investigators to believe it may have been a body.”

It added: “The man became cocky. Just as he bent down to put the bundle in the trunk, with no neighbors or onlookers around, something happened that hadn’t happened in 15 years: the Google Maps car drove by.”

Police used the visual evidence to solve the mystery surrounding the disappearance. The Google application, which allows users to navigate maps in three dimensions with real photos taken by cameras in cars on the road, shows images of the alleged crime, which is believed to have taken place in October 2023.

Police found out who owned the car and listened in on the suspect’s phone

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The 48-year-old suspect was wearing jeans, a blue jacket from Club Deportivo Numancia – a local football team – and brown boots and was handling a long white package. Police told Spanish media that Google Street View offered further potential clues as another photo sequence showed the blurred silhouette of a person dressed in dark blue carrying a large white bundle in a wheelbarrow.

The investigation was initiated because a relative of the victim reported his absence. Police say they initially only found the victim’s upper body “in an advanced state of decomposition.”

Since Google introduced Street View in 2007, it has captured some surreal sights while documenting most of the world’s highways and byways. Either accidentally or on purpose, people were photographed in front of the mobile cameras in costumes, in strange poses, in the act or dropping their pants – although many of the rudest examples were censored.

Less mischievous examples include a perfect rainbow captured over Dartmoor in 2018, a pink horse-drawn carriage blocking traffic in west London the same year, and the Stig of Top equipment apparently stood on the road near Loch Ness in 2013.