Heartbreaking Google Maps image helped solve case after two years when woman vanished from her home
A heartbreaking Google Maps image has helped to solve a case two years after a woman vanished from her home.
The image helped to solve the disappearance of Paulette Landrieux, 83, an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease in Andenne, Belgium.
Paulette was last seen alive in November of 2020.
A podcaster, MrBallen, recounted in a recent video how she disappeared after her husband turned his back for just a few moments.
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Her husband, Marcel Taret, was the sole carer of Paulette.
MrBallen explained in his video: “Paulette needed help remembering to eat or to take her medications on time.
“Sometimes she would just wander off without telling Marcel and he would have to go and corral her and bring her back home.”
Marcel turned away from hers to peg some clothes on a line, only to turn around and not find her where he’d left her.
He had left her in front of the TV with some lunch.
This would be the last time he would see her alive.
He called the police and within an hour, a search and rescue helicopter arrived, but they were unable to find her.
Two years later, one of Paulette’s neighbours happened to be looking on Google Maps when they spotted something bizarre: Paulette herself.
By pure coincidence, there was a Google streetview car driving past Paulette and Marcel’s house at the very moment she walked away from him.
The picture shows Marcel pegging clothes on the line and Paulette walking away from him.
The neighbours realised and passed on the information, with investigators eventually looking into the photo and tracing her path away from the house.
MrBallen explained: “Across the street was a steep hill that led down to a thick bramble bush.”
Investigators found Paulette’s body in the bush.
The YouTuber went on to say: “When that huge search for her was going on, very likely she was just trapped down there.
“She didn’t understand what was going on, couldn’t necessarily yell up to communicate with anybody, and so she stayed down there and died.”
The video was part of a MrBallen video on ‘disturbing stories’, featuring two other unsettling tales.
One comment regarding the story of Paulette said: “Far as the first story goes, instant anxiety.
“I’m 32, almost been married 10 years, if my wife up and vanished I’d be afraid I wouldn’t last long. She does more for me than she will ever know every single day.”
Another said: “The one thing that confuses me is how tf for nearly TWO YEARS nobody at the neighbouring house realised there was a dead body in their yard. That's insane.”
Topics: Google Maps, True Crime
Michael Slavin