- Investigators are now comparing DNA to remains found at the waste plant
A woman is believed to have been crushed to death after passing out in a rubbish container coming home from a night out in Spain.
Student Agostina Rubini Medina, 24, disappeared after a night of partying with friends in Palma, Majorca nearly three weeks ago.
Investigators have found skeletal remains at a waste disposal plant where her phone was last active in the early hours of October 3.
They say they believe she fell into a bin while trying to pick something up, before losing consciousness.
Binmen arrived to empty it 15 minutes after a witness saw her handbag set down nearby.
Miss Medina’s phone went dead after their vehicle arrived at an incineration plant. Police believe she would have died in the lorry before arriving.
Agostina Rubina Medina (pictured) disappeared nearly three weeks ago in Majorca
A police notice describes Agostina with an appeal for information about her disappearance
Miss Medina, a social integration student local to the island, went missing after going out with friends on Wednesday, October 2.
Intensive searches have been ongoing at a landfill site where waste is stored, compacted and incinerated on the island.
Police announced recently 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 sent shockwaves through the community, still awaiting confirmation of a match in DNA.
Police say if Miss Medina was transported the incinerator, it would have been ‘impossible to survive’ the journey inside the EMAYA lorry.
Rubbish is compacted inside and there is little oxygen. Miss Medina is believed to have already been unconscious when the bin was taken away.
Investigators believe a combination of alcohol and medication she was taking may have affected her judgment before ‘voluntarily’ climbing into a bin on the way home.
A witness said they saw a handbag placed next to the bin around 12:12am – some 15 minutes before binmen arrived to empty it.
The waste was then taken to a landfill site, where Miss Medina’s phone was last active at 2:59am in the morning of October 3.
There, trucks dump rubbish into a large sealed room containing some 12,000 tons of waste.
The National Guard said it would take months to sort through the rubbish by hand, and the build up leaves the tank unstable and susceptible to landslides.
Police extended their search to a second tank on October 7. The tank is used to incinerate waste at more than 1,200C.
Skeletal remains were found in the second tank, and investigators are still working to match the DNA with that of Miss Medina.
Police are still trying to work out exactly what happened in those fateful hours, pooling together witness statements and CCTV footage.
They believe a blouse found in the handbag by the bin at the bus stop belonged to Miss Medina, and say it is ‘very likely’ that she has died.
An appeal for information noted Miss Medina was wearing blue jeans, a brown T-shirt and an animal print shirt before her disapperance.
They describe her as being 1.6m (5ft 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 she was taking.’
Miss Medina vanished in the early hours of October 3 after going out for drinks with friends
Police said a witness working a shop that served Miss Medina before her disappearance corroborated that she seemed under the influence of alcohol.
Her parents say there was nothing strange about her behaviour earlier in the day.
Miss Medina, born in Argentina but local to Majorca, is understood to have been friends with Malén Ortiz Rodríguez, who disappeared without a trace in 2013.
Despite wide-searching investigations, police were never able to ascertain how the 15-year-old vanished while on the way to her partner’s home in Son Ferrer.
The family of Miss Rodríguez said they are helping Miss Medina’s family in ‘everything they can’.