Google Street View helped to solve the mystery of what happened to an elderly woman who went missing from her home. Paulette Landrieux suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and was cared for by her husband, Marcel Taret.
But one day as he pegged washing out in their garden in Belgium, 83-year-old Paulette wandered off and was not seen again. Podcaster, Mr Ballen, explained in a recent video that it was a full-time job for Marcel.
He said: “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.”
And on November 2, 2020, Marcel left Paulette on her own for a few minutes so he could peg some laundry on his washing line. Marcel had set his wife up in front of the TV with a nice lunch but when he came back inside, she was no longer there.
He searched outside for her and asked neighbours if they had seen his wife but he was unable to find her. The police were called and a search and rescue helicopter was dispatched hovering over his home in Andenne, Belgium.
But night fell, with no sign of Paulette. Mr Ballen said: “Over the next few days and weeks Paulette didn’t turn up. Nobody had any idea where she was, and weeks turned into months and then months turned into two full years that nobody had seen Paulette.
“By that point Marcel had basically resigned himself to the fact that he very likely would die without ever figuring out what happened to his wife.”
But an incredible coincidence helped solve the mystery of Paulette’s sudden disappearance. The day that she vanished coincided with the day that Google’s Streetview camera car visited Andenne. In 2022, one of Marcel’s neighbours made the connection and examined photos of the street where the couple lived, The Mirror reports.
In the pictures, Paulette can be seen walking across the street away from her home while Marcel can just be glimpsed in the background, as he hangs up the laundry. Investigators traced the route that Paulette appeared to be taking, and finally discovered her fate. Mr Ballen explained: “Across the street was a steep hill that led down to a thick bramble bush.”
“When that huge search for her was going on, very likely she was just trapped down there,” Mr Ballen said. “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.”
Sadly, her body was later found in the bush.