A woman is believed to have been crushed to death after fainting in a rubbish bin while returning home from a night out in Spain.
Student Agostina Rubini Medina, 24, disappeared after a night out with friends in Palma, Mallorca, almost three weeks ago.
Investigators found skeletal remains at a waste disposal plant where his phone was last active in the early hours of October 3.
They say they believe he fell into a container while trying to pick something up, before losing consciousness.
Binmen arrived to empty it 15 minutes after a witness saw her bag nearby.
Ms. Medina’s phone went dead after her vehicle arrived at an incinerator plant. Police believe she died in the truck before arriving.
Agostina Rubina Medina (in the photo) disappeared almost three weeks ago in Mallorca
A police notice describes Agostina with a call for information about her disappearance
Miss Medina, a local social integration student on the island, disappeared after going out with friends on Wednesday, October 2.
Intensive searches have been carried out at a landfill site where waste is stored, compacted and incinerated on the island.
The police recently announced that they had found human remains inside one of the tanks and sent them to the Institute of Legal Medicine in Palma for analysis.
The tragedy has shocked the community, which is still waiting for confirmation of a DNA match.
Police say that if Miss Medina had been transported in the incinerator, it would have been “impossible to survive” the trip inside the EMAYA truck.
The garbage is compacted inside and there is little oxygen. It is believed that Miss Medina was already unconscious when the container was taken.
Investigators believe a combination of alcohol and medications he was taking may have impaired his judgment before he “willfully” walked into a dumpster on the way home.
A witness said he saw a bag placed next to the bin at around 12:12am, about 15 minutes before the bins arrived to be emptied.
The waste was then taken to a landfill, where Ms. Medina’s phone was last active at 2:59 a.m. on the morning of October 3.
There, trucks dump the garbage into a large sealed room containing some 12,000 tons of waste.
The National Guard said it would take months to sort through the trash by hand and that the buildup leaves the tank unstable and susceptible to landslides.
Police expanded their search to a second tank on October 7. The tank is used to incinerate waste at more than 1,200°C.
Skeletal remains were found in the second tank and investigators are still working to match the DNA to Miss Medina.
Police are still trying to work out what exactly happened in those fateful hours, gathering witness statements and CCTV footage.
They believe that a blouse found in the bag next to the trash can at the bus stop belonged to Miss Medina and say it is “very likely” that she died.
A request for information noted that Miss Medina was wearing blue jeans, a brown T-shirt and an animal print shirt before her disappearance.
She is described as being 1.6 m (5 ft 2′), with brown eyes, brown hair and a tattoo on her back.
Deputy police chief Fernando Reboyras said: ‘She was a thin woman who had difficulty consuming alcohol. This was made worse by the medication I was taking.’
Miss Medina disappeared in the early morning of October 3 after going out for drinks with friends
Police said a witness who worked at a store that served Ms. Medina before her disappearance corroborated that she appeared to be under the influence of alcohol.
His parents say there was nothing strange about his behavior earlier that day.
It is understood that Miss Medina, born in Argentina but local to Mallorca, was a friend of Malén Ortiz Rodríguez, who disappeared without a trace in 2013.
Despite exhaustive investigations, the police were never able to determine how the 15-year-old girl disappeared while on her way to her partner’s house in Son Ferrer.
Miss Rodriguez’s family said they are helping Miss Medina’s family ‘everything they can.’