{"id":5917,"date":"2019-01-02T07:22:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T07:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/australian-police-google-maps-blunder-missed-location-of-body\/"},"modified":"2019-01-02T07:22:22","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T07:22:22","slug":"australian-police-google-maps-blunder-missed-location-of-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/australian-police-google-maps-blunder-missed-location-of-body\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian police Google Maps blunder ‘missed location of body’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A missing Australian’s body could have been found 18 months earlier if searchers had not relied on incorrect Google Maps data, a coroner has said.<\/p>\n

Darrell Simon, 46, was last seen in November 2014 at his partner’s house about 80km (50 miles) west of Brisbane.<\/p>\n

Search crews scoured Mr Simon’s nearby rural property at the time, but his remains were not found there until May 2016. His death was ruled a suicide.<\/p>\n

A printed map used by police showed incorrect boundaries on the property.<\/p>\n

It meant that search volunteers covered only about half of Mr Simon’s property in Laidley Creek West, said Queensland deputy state coroner John Lock.<\/p>\n

“The fact the ground search was conducted over only half the property was very regretful and should not have happened,” he said in his report completed last month.<\/p>\n

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The delay in finding Mr Simon’s body had “compounded the grief felt by his family and friends, particularly his father”, Mr Lock wrote.<\/p>\n

It had also fuelled speculation that Mr Simon had been the victim of foul play, potentially involving a disagreement over money.<\/p>\n

“One wonders if Darrell’s body was found during the first police search… whether such unhelpful and at times clearly defamatory and untruthful speculation would have even surfaced,” the report said.<\/p>\n

Mr Lock noted, however, that thick vegetation may still have prevented Mr Simon’s body from being found if a search had taken place.<\/p>\n

His remains were ultimately discovered by the property’s subsequent owners, following a period of drought and the clearing of vegetation.<\/p>\n

The coroner’s report noted that Google Maps was “less helpful” in determining the property’s boundaries than other tools available to police.<\/p>\n

Mr Lock recommended that police be ordered to conduct future searches by using high-quality GPS and mapping data, and improve their communications with search volunteers.<\/p>\n

Queensland police had already taken steps to address both recommendations, the coroner was told.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Image copyright Getty Images A missing Australian’s body could have been found 18 months earlier if searchers had not relied on incorrect Google Maps data, a coroner has said. Darrell Simon, 46, was last seen in November 2014 at his partner’s house about 80km (50 miles) west of Brisbane. Search crews scoured Mr Simon’s nearby … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}