The Provincial Homicides Brigade is looking into the hypothesis that the body of a missing elderly man is in a municipal refuse recycling plant.

Pablo Sánchez Valverde, aged 88, disappeared in Granada in 2015. Relatives in Deifontes believe they know the exact part of the recycling plant where his body might be – the area used for processing organic waste.

However, the Homicides Brigade considers that to find a body after four years in a waste plant is very complicated. They point out that this is not to say that the body is not there, but that all the theories as to where Sr. Sánchez lies, it is the most probable.

This is because nearby CCTV security cameras recorded Sr. Sánchez leaving his home with a bag of rubbish and then returning, only to leave again with a step ladder and a shovel just nine minutes later.

Furthermore, the owner of a bar in the same building saw Pablo and asked him where he was going and he replied that he was going to look for his hearing aid that he though had been in the rubbish he had thrown out. The victim then crossed the street, then turned a corner leading to where the rubbish hoppers are kept, thus disappearing from the CCTV footage.

The police calculated the time of the victim’s departure together with the times that rubbish was collected on that day: rubbish lorries have a system that controls rubbish collection, recording the time and weight of each hopper. The lorry that evening passed a little after the victim left home with a step ladder and shovel.

The family believe that the body did not pass through the normal process and was dumped directly onto the vegetable waste. A worker at the plant had told the family that the machinery has broken down that night, which lead them to believe how this had happened. However, such a temporary mechanical failure has not been officially confirmed.

Now the family are keeping their fingers crossed that a judge will give the order to search the area.

(News: Metropolitan Area, Granada, Andalucia)