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Google Street View 'dead body' mystery solved

What appeared to be the corpse of a young girl lying on the sidewalk in Worcester, U.K., turns out to be a very much alive young girl playing a prank on a friend.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

What would you do if you saw the body of a girl lying on the sidewalk as you nosed your way around Google Street View?

Would you immediately decide it's a prank, laugh, and then go on with your quest of finding an image of a man wearing a horse's head?

Or would you, like the socially responsible residents of Middle Road, Worcester, U.K. (pronounce it Wooster, everybody), scream, then contact Google and that continual powerhouse of media activity, your local newspaper?

According to the Daily Mail, what these residents saw was not the dead body of a 10-year-old girl, but the playing-dead body of that girl.

Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

Apparently, Azura Beebeejaun fell over in the street, as 10-year-olds often do, and decided to pretend that she had left for another life, just to tease a friend. At that moment, unbeknownst to her, a Google Street View car was playing very much alive and captured her first foray towards Shakespearian stardom.

"I'm quite chuffed I'm on the Internet. It is quite funny, and I can't wait to tell my classmates when I go back to school," she told the Mail.

Her mom, a youth worker who clearly knows far more about youth than she wished, told the Mail that when she heard of the dead body: "I assumed it was my daughter because she is always playing around on the pavement outside."

One must again marvel at the concentration of the Google Street View driver who, presumably so dedicated to his or her task, didn't even notice a deadicated little girl lying on the sidewalk. Who can forget the Australian man, passed out after mourning a loved one, lying on the sidewalk for all on Street View to see?

Adorably, the apparently lifeless Beebeejaun continues to grace Street View a year after the image was snapped. Middle Street, Worcester, is famous at last.