Google Maps Solved These 6 Disturbing Cases

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Google Maps Solved These 6 Disturbing Cases    #GoogleMapsMysteries #CreepyDiscoveries #DisturbingTruths #SolvedWithTech #TrueCrimeRevealed #DigitalDetective #UncoveredSecrets

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00:00At around 1pm on November 2nd, 2020, an 83-year-old mother of four named Paulette Landryax mysteriously

00:13disappeared from her home in Anden, Belgium.

00:16At the time, her husband was hanging the laundry up to dry in the garden, and didn't notice

00:20she was gone until later that afternoon.

00:22When Paulette's family realized she was missing, they reported the disappearance to the police,

00:26triggering a pretty big search for the missing woman.

00:29Though this wasn't the first time Paulette disappeared, as she reportedly suffered from

00:33Alzheimer's disease and would frequently leave the house at random times of the day and night

00:37without telling her husband where she was going.

00:40She was known to randomly knock on the neighbors' doors for no apparent reason, and in the years

00:44leading up to her disappearance, she no longer recognized her children or her husband.

00:49Every other time she had disappeared, her husband would find her a few feet away from the house

00:52and bring her back inside, but this time, she was nowhere to be found.

00:57During this search, 50 police officers and several search and rescue dogs were deployed

01:01to the area, along with multiple thermal vision helicopters and an entire fleet of drones.

01:07But even with all these resources at their disposal, the local police department failed to find

01:11any relevant clues leading to Paulette.

01:14After several weeks, the search was called off, and the family assumed that she had fallen

01:17into the Meuse River, which ran near her home.

01:20In October of 2022, just as the police department was about to close the file, one investigator was

01:25searching for Paulette's house on Google Street View, and found something shocking.

01:30There as luck would have it, he found a street view image of Paulette leaving her home and

01:34crossing the street to her neighbor's house.

01:37The case was immediately reopened, and police were once again deployed to the area, where

01:41they found the body of Paulette lying at the bottom of a hill directly below the neighbor's

01:44garden.

01:46After the autopsy was performed, it was determined that the woman had fallen from an unenclosed section

01:50of the garden and died shortly after, her final moments eerily being caught by the passing

01:55Google Street View car as she walks to her death, likely in another wave of confused state

02:00caused by her Alzheimer's disease.

02:03One thing that's hard to understand is how the police failed to see her with their drones

02:06and helicopters the first time, but at least now the family can find closure knowing what

02:10happened to Paulette, even if it comes with this eerie last image of her ever being seen

02:15alive.

02:16If you visit the location on Google Maps today, you'll find the image has been overwritten

02:20by a more up-to-date view of the town.

02:25In July 2011, two armed individuals broke into an empty house in an otherwise peaceful suburb

02:30of Oklahoma City.

02:32With a house full of valuables for them to steal and nobody there to stop them, the two got

02:36to work.

02:37But, unfortunately for them, the looting spree was much more short-lived than they had hoped.

02:42A few minutes later, the homeowner returned and walked in on the two of them looting her house.

02:46But, instead of fleeing with the valuables they had already stolen, they held her at gunpoint

02:51as they continued to ransack her home.

02:53This went on for over an hour, and during the traumatizing incident, the woman recalled

02:57thinking they were going to shoot her before leaving.

03:00Fortunately, the robbers eventually left the house without physically harming the woman.

03:05After the armed robbery, she refused to reveal her identity to the press out of fear that the

03:09thieves would retaliate.

03:11The woman later reported the incident to the cops, but with no witnesses and an absence of

03:15solid leads, the case eventually went cold, and the woman lost hope that the two criminals

03:19would ever be found.

03:20However, three years later, the case took an unexpected turn.

03:25On a day in July 2014, the woman's neighbor was looking at her street using Google Maps Street

03:29View, when she noticed an image of two men casually strolling down the street, who perfectly

03:34matched the description the victim had given her of the criminals.

03:37Immediately, she texted the woman, who confirmed that the two men captured by the street view

03:42van that happened to be mapping out the neighborhood on the day of the robbery were indeed the same

03:46two men who had robbed her.

03:48Based on the direction they were walking, it seems that the image was captured in the

03:51minutes leading up to the crime.

03:53Unfortunately, because the two men's faces are obscured by the grainy quality of the image,

03:58and Google software that automatically blurs pedestrians, the cops haven't been able to

04:01track the men down.

04:02But, with a string of clues and a picture to add to their search, police now have a much

04:07better chance of catching the two thanks to Google Maps.

04:12One night in October 2006, a 72-year-old man named David Lee Niles met up with a friend

04:17at Jake's Bar in Byron Town, Michigan.

04:20This was a place that David visited frequently, and usually stayed there for at least a couple

04:24of hours, but on that particular evening, the story was very different.

04:29Earlier that year, David had been diagnosed with cancer, and after a brief conversation

04:33with his friend, he left abruptly, claiming that he was in a lot of physical pain due to

04:36the cancer.

04:38That was the last time anyone ever saw him.

04:41When his family failed to get in touch with him, they reported him missing to the police,

04:44leading to a statewide search that ultimately led nowhere, as the cops couldn't find any

04:48clues as to where David could have gone.

04:51In 2011, five years after his disappearance, his family lost hope and accepted the idea that

04:56David was gone.

04:58The obituary they published online read, David Lee Niles, age 72 of Wyoming, passed away and

05:03only God knows the time and place.

05:06The case went completely cold, until almost a decade later when a new twist shed light

05:10on David's disappearance.

05:13One morning in November 2015, Brian Houseman, an employee of the Cook Funeral Home in Byron

05:18County was decorating the company Christmas tree outside.

05:21When he got to the top of the tree on his lift to put up the star, he noticed something

05:25in the adjacent pond that looked like a submerged car.

05:28Immediately, he called the police, and using Google maps from a bird's eye view, they were

05:32able to see the same outline that was described.

05:34A dive team was deployed to the area, who confirmed that there was in fact a car at the bottom

05:39of the pond.

05:40Later that morning, a wrecking crew pulled out the vehicle for the police to inspect.

05:45Inside the vehicle, the cops found the skeletal remains of a man, along with a wallet belonging

05:49to David Lee Niles.

05:51After he was confirmed that the skeletal remains were his, David's family members finally

05:56found some closure.

05:57Still, the case remains a mystery, as it's unknown what exactly happened to him.

06:02Even before his cancer diagnosis, David was known to have severe depressive episodes,

06:07and things understandably got a lot worse for him after he found out about the illness.

06:11With all this in mind, it's possible that he took his own life, but we'll likely never

06:15know for sure.

06:19In the 80s and 90s, Joaquino Gamino was one of Italy's most wanted gangsters.

06:25He operated within a Sicilian mafia clan in Agrigento, that was embroiled in a feud with

06:29Cosa Nostra, Sicily's main mafia network.

06:32He was first arrested in 1984 for murder and various other mafia-related crimes, but was later

06:37released shortly after.

06:39In 1998, he was arrested again in Barcelona, only this time he was sentenced to life in prison.

06:45After serving 4 years of his prison sentence at a prison in Rome, he managed to escape

06:50in 2002 during a commotion at the prison.

06:54Following his escape, he immediately relocated to a town near Madrid, Spain, and changed his

06:58name to Manuel Mormino.

07:00Over the 20 years that he was on the run from the police, he got married, worked as a chef

07:04at a restaurant called Manu's Kitchen, and even opened up a fruit and vegetable shop

07:08called Manu's Garden.

07:11Sicilian police searched everywhere for him for years, and they eventually issued a European

07:14arrest warrant back in 2014.

07:17After carrying out several investigations, the police suspected that Gamino was hiding

07:21somewhere in Spain, but the way they pinpointed his exact location was pretty out of the ordinary.

07:27During the investigation, Sicilian police found that Google Maps had captured a street view

07:31image of two men talking outside of Manu's garden.

07:35One of the men looked extremely similar to the man they were looking for, but the cops only

07:39confirmed his identity when they came across the listing for Manu's Kitchen, the restaurant

07:43where Gamino worked.

07:44While investigating online, the police found a photo of him dressed in chef's attire on

07:48the Facebook page for Manu's Kitchen.

07:51After confirming his location, the police arrested Joaquino Gamino on December 17th, 2022, and

07:58extradited him to Sicily, where he is currently serving life in prison.

08:02According to the police, when they arrested him, Gamino was extremely confused, and even had

08:06the nerve to ask how they found him when he hadn't even called his family in 10 years.

08:12In 2009, police from Zurich, Switzerland were carrying out an investigation to shut down

08:17illegal marijuana growing operations all over the country.

08:21At some point in the investigation, they used Google Earth to locate the addresses of two

08:25farmers who they suspected of being part of an illegal marijuana operation, and that's

08:30when one of the detectives found something interesting.

08:33As he was scanning the area on Google Earth, he noticed an unusual change in the pattern

08:37of the fields around Rapperswill in the northeastern state of Thurgau.

08:42Zooming in, he saw what appeared to be a cannabis plantation that measured more than

08:46two acres and was hidden inside a cornfield right next to one of the farmers' houses.

08:51The Google Earth discovery ultimately led to the arrest of 16 people and the seizure

08:55of 1.1 metric tons of marijuana as well as 900,000 Swiss francs in cash, which is the

09:00equivalent of around 1.1 million dollars.

09:04According to the police report, the drug ring allegedly sold up to seven tons of marijuana

09:08between 2004 and 2008, bringing in from 3 to 10 million francs a year.

09:14When asked about the breakthrough, the head of Zurich Police's special narcotics unit,

09:18Norbert Glossner, said it was an interesting chance discovery.

09:23Since then, the cannabis plantation has been plowed over as recreational marijuana continues

09:27to be illegal in Switzerland.

09:31This incident happened at a home in Derbyshire, England, where David and Rebecca Soans lived

09:36with their two children, Lauren and Ruben.

09:39In 2009, the family bought a caravan to travel across the country, but it was unfortunately

09:43destroyed shortly after when a joyrider crashed into it.

09:47A few months later, they bought a new $15,000 caravan to replace the old one, which they left

09:51in their driveway.

09:53In June of that year, Rebecca came home one day to find the caravan had disappeared, after

09:57which she immediately reported the incident to the police.

10:00However, with no solid leads, the cops couldn't really do anything about it, and the case

10:04went cold pretty quickly.

10:06It wasn't until 9 months later, in March of 2010, that 11-year-old Ruben Soans found

10:11something revealing as he was looking at his house on Google Maps.

10:15Following the street view, he found an image of a male intruder on the family's driveway,

10:19standing suspiciously outside of his 4x4 vehicle.

10:23After a bit of investigating, the family found that the image had been captured by the Google

10:26Street View car just moments before the caravan was stolen.

10:30Around that time, a neighbor also came forward saying that he had seen the same man towing

10:34the caravan on the day of the robbery, but thought that it was a family friend and didn't

10:38think it was important to tell the family about it.

10:41With such a clear image of the suspect, the Soans thought it would be easy for the cops

10:44to solve the crime, but it turned out to be much more difficult than expected to get

10:48an unblurred image of the 4x4's license plates from Google.

10:52Even though the police knew exactly what the thief looked like, it was never publicly confirmed

10:56if they managed to track him down or not.

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