The body of a man who disappeared without a trace was found by chance thanks to Google Earth.
William Moldt was reported missing in Lantana, Florida on November 7, 1997 after failing to return home from a night out.
At around 9:30 p.m. that evening, the 40-year-old called his girlfriend to tell her that he would be home soon.
But it would be the last time they spoke – he never came back.
Police immediately launched a missing person investigation, but the case was eventually closed and Moldt's relatives were left without answers for more than two decades.
William Earl Moldt probably lost control of his car and drove into the pond (The Charley Project)
But in August 2019 – 22 years after the disappearance – a former resident of the Grand Isles neighborhood in Wellington, Florida, was looking at his former home on Google Earth when he noticed something strange in a large pond.
He zoomed in to see what looked like a car and contacted the person at the lake house to ask them to investigate.
The homeowner named Barry Fay duly obliged and by flying a drone over the area was able to confirm that there was indeed a white car hiding beneath the surface.
Fay called the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, which sent deputies to the scene.
When they pulled out the white sedan, they discovered that this was “obviously the case [been in] and after opening the doors they found Moldt's skeletal remains inside.
The car was visible on Google Earth for 12 years before it was accidentally discovered (The Charley Project/Google Earth).
Fay told the Palm Beach Post that he assumed it was just a “junkable old car.”
“I never thought there would be a body of a 22-year-old,” he admitted.
Perhaps the most frightening and painful aspect of the case is that the car had been visible on Google Earth since 2007, according to a report from the Charley Project, an online database of cold cases in the United States.
And yet it took another 12 years before anyone opened their eyes and discovered it.
The sheriff's office told the BBC in 2019 that Moldt most likely lost control of his vehicle and drove into the pond, although witnesses said he did not appear drunk as he left the nightclub.
Police insisted the car was not visible at the start of the investigation into its disappearance and that the vehicle could only be seen thanks to a recent water shift in the pond.
“You can’t determine what happened so many years ago,” police spokeswoman Teri Barbera told the news site.
“All we know is that he disappeared from the face of the earth and has now been discovered.”
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