The body of a man who had disappeared without a trace was found by chance thanks to Google Earth.
William Moldt was reported missing from Lantana, Florida, on November 7, 1997, after he failed to return home from a night out.
At around 21:30 PM, the 40-year-old called his girlfriend to tell her he would be home soon.
But that would be the last time they spoke as he never returned.
Police quickly launched a missing person investigation, but the case was eventually closed and for more than two decades, Moldt's loved ones remained without answers.
However, in August 2019 – 22 years after the disappearance – a former resident of the Grand Isles neighborhood in Wellington, Florida, was visiting his former home on Google Earth when he noticed something strange in a large pond.
He zoomed in to see something that looked like a car and so contacted the person who lived in the house by the lake to ask him to investigate.
The homeowner, named Barry Fay, obligingly accepted and, by flying a drone over the area, was able to confirm that there was indeed a white car hidden beneath the surface.
Fay called the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, who sent deputies to the scene.
Pulling the car out, they noticed that it had “obviously been in the water for a considerable amount of time.” And after opening its doors, they found Moldt’s skeletal remains inside.
Fay told The Palm Beach Post that he had assumed it was just some "old wrecked car."
"I never believed there would be a 22-year-old dead body," he admitted.
Perhaps the saddest and most 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 unsolved cases in the US.
And yet, it took another 12 years for someone to open their eyes and recognize him.
The sheriff's office said in 2019 that Moldt likely lost control of his vehicle and drove into the pond, although witnesses said he did not appear intoxicated when he left the nightclub.
Police insisted that when the investigation into his disappearance began, the car was not visible and it was only thanks to a more recent change in the pond's waters that the vehicle could be seen.
"You can't determine what happened so many years ago," said police spokeswoman Teri Barbera.
"What we know is that he disappeared from the face of the Earth and has now been discovered."
