Scottish engineers pull off staged murder for Google View

When he saw the car coming, Gary Kerr of Edinburgh, Scotland wanted to be seen committing the murder.

No, not a real murder. Just a staged one.

That’s because the car wasn’t just any car, but a Google Street View vehicle.

Kerr and his victim, Dan Thompson, are mechanics at a garage near the scene of the crime on Giles Street.

The duo came up with the perfect plan to pull off the hoax — which featured among other things good acting and an axe.

“I recognized the Google car coming into the street from the camera tower on the top. Giles Street is in a U-shape so we had about a minute before it would pass us. It had to go around a car park to take various shots so that gave us some time. We just thought we had to do something. This opportunity wasn’t coming around very often so Gary grabbed a pick axe handle and we ran out into the street,” Thompson told the Edinburgh News.

“We decided really quickly what to do and I lay down while Gary stood over me with a pickaxe handle. I wish we’d a little more time because we would have went out mob-handed and really staged an elaborate tableau for the camera.”

The staged killing, though, happened last summer. And it wasn’t until someone saw it on Google and reported it to the local police.

Upon investigation, it turned out that, yes, Thompson had not been murdered at all.

“They were already pretty certain it was a joke because one of their colleagues gets their car serviced here,” Thompson said. “They thought it was a really good laugh and in five minutes they were gone.”