Featured Image Credit: Google Maps
Topics: Google, Google Maps, World News, Technology, Social Media, Police
Joe Yates
Topics: Google, Google Maps, World News, Technology, Social Media, Police
A woman who had seemingly vanished into thin air was found after a Google Maps car tracked her final steps.
Paulette Landrieux, who had Alzheimer's, disappeared without a trace in November 2020 having last been seen by her husband, and carer, at their home in Andenne, Belgium.
A search party was subsequently launched, which involved helicopters with thermal vision, drones, and even sniffer dogs, but their efforts bore no fruit.
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The local police force issued a missing person report stating that Landrieux was a 'potentially confused woman' who would often knock on her neighbour's homes - which will only add to how surreal her disappearance was and eventual discovery.
On November 2, 2020, Landrieux wandered out of her home and began walking across the road - at the exact time a Google Maps car was collating fresh imagery from her street, Rue Reppe.
It was the first time Google had visited her road in 11 years, and the search engines 'Street View' captures her climbing the stairs down to her neighbour's garden.
While this was all going on, her husband was hanging washing up in the garden - with the Google Maps car also capturing him doing so in the same shot through a 360 degree panoramic image.
Incredibly, two years went by without any success as to where the 83-year-old could be, with her family members assuming that she must have fallen in to the Meuse River, which is located a short walk behind their garden.
It took a sleuth attempting to retrace her steps through Google Maps and Google Street View to finally come across footage of her crossing the road in a white jumper and black trousers.
Following the discovery, police refreshed their search, this time to look in the garden of the property opposite to her home.
After two years, Landrieux was found at the bottom of a hill right below her neighbour's garden, with investigations concluding she had fallen from an open section of the garden and tragically died shortly after taking the tumble.
Taking to Reddit, users were in disbelief that it took years for Landrieux to be discovered a matter of a hundred or so meters from her house.
"There was a large scale search and she was found in her neighbour’s garden? That is unbelievable," one wrote.
Another typed: "I can’t believe they only found her because Google maps showed her crossing the street. Were they even trying?"
Meanwhile, others were shocked at the timing from the Google Maps car. One user commented: "Are we are to assume those photos were taken on the day she went missing? If so, wow! Good job Google!"
Another replied: "Not just the day she went missing, but the exact moment. If it had been 10 seconds earlier she would just be in her walkway and it wouldn’t give any clues."