Two years after an elderly woman’s unexplained disappearance, one of her neighbours had the idea of checking Google Maps, and made a chilling discover

Paulette Landrieux was spotted on Google Maps after she mysteriously disappeared(Image: Google Maps)
The mysterious disappearance of an elderly woman who vanished without trace after her husband turned his back for a few moments, was solved two years later thanks to Google Maps.

Marcel Taret was the sole carer for his 83-year-old wife, Paulette Landrieux, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

Podcaster Mr Ballen explained in a recent video that it was a full-time job for Marcel. “Paulette needed help remembering to eat or to take her medications on time,” he said. “Sometimes she would just wander off without telling Marcel and he would have to go and corral her and bring her back home.”

On November 2, 2020, Marcel left Paulette on her own for a few minutes so he could peg some laundry on his washing line. It turned out to be the last time he saw her alive.

Paulette, 83, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease(Image: Chilling Scares/YouTube)
Before popping out to do his job, Marcel had set his wife up in front of the TV with a nice lunch. He imagined that she’d still be happily watching her favourite show when he came back indoors. But to his surprise, she wasn’t there.

With mounting horror, Marcel went from room to room looking for his wife. “He went outside,” Mr Ballen recalled. “He searched the outside of the house but she wasn’t there. He even knocked on some neighbours’ doors but they hadn’t seen her.”

Anxiously, he called the police and, less than an hour later, was relieved to see a search and rescue helicopter hovering over his home in Andenne, Belgium. Marcel was sure that – one way or another – he would find out what had happened to his wife soon enough.

Marcel had no idea that Paulette would wander off(Image: Google Maps)
But night fell, with no sign of Paulette. “Over the next few days and weeks Paulette didn’t turn up,” Mr Ballen explained. “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.

Marcel can just be seen on the right hand side of the photo, oblivious to his wife’s dangerous wandering(Image: Google Maps)
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.”

Inside that bramble bush they found Paulette’s body. “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.”