The search for a 24-year-old student in Mallorca, Spain, ended tragically after authorities determined that the student had likely passed out in a trash can and was later picked up by a garbage truck and taken to a waste treatment plant. The facility where his body was cremated.
Agostina Rubini Medina disappeared while drinking with her friends in the capital Palma, the tourist center of the island, on the evening of October 2. Piecing together his final moments, Spain's National Police believe Medina was waiting for a bus to go to the southwestern city of Palma Nova, where he lived, around midnight and likely threw away his phone, then lost consciousness while trying to call him. take it back
according to Majorca Daily Bulletinvia UK SunAuthorities said Medina “voluntarily climbed into one of the garbage containers and lost consciousness.”
Police ruled out whether he had taken the bus, and a store employee near the bus stop reported that he had stopped by just before midnight to buy a bag of chips while visibly intoxicated. Medina apparently had a low tolerance for alcohol and was also taking medications that likely aggravated the effects.
Shortly after midnight on October 3 at 12:27 a.m., the garbage truck arrived to pick up the garbage truck with Medina still inside. Tracking data from his phone showed the garbage truck traveling along the road to the incinerator before dying out around 2 a.m. An eyewitness who was at the bus stop just before 12.12pm did not report hearing any cries for help before the garbage was collected. Medina's bag and blouse were also seen “neatly arranged” next to the trash can.
The truck was reportedly filled with more than seven tons of garbage, and investigators said it would be “impossible to survive inside a garbage truck.”
After days of searching the facility for more than 15,000 tons of waste, authorities finally found human skeletal remains in the ash, which were sent to a medical facility in Palma to determine whether they actually belonged to Medina.
“The main hypothesis is that the woman entered the container to get something and had the misfortune of feeling unwell inside the container,” Ángel Ruiz, head of the National Police's homicide squad, told reporters.