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National System of Missing and Unidentified Persons
William Moldt went missing in Florida at the age of 40 in 1997
The remains of a man missing in Florida two decades ago were found in a submerged car visible on Google Maps.
William Moldt was reported missing from Lantana, Florida on November 7, 1997.
He failed to return home after an evening at a club at the age of 40.
Police opened an investigation into missing persons, but the case became cold.
On August 28th of this year, 22 years later, police were called for information on a car found in a pond at Moon Bay Circle in Wellington.
When the vehicle was released from the water, remains of skeleton were found inside. A week later, the remains were identified as belonging to Mr. Moldt.
Mr. Moldt's sunken car was spotted by a former resident of the area after "a Google search," the police said.
The man then contacted a resident of Moon Bay Circle to tell them what he had seen. With the help of his personal drone, the current resident confirmed the presence of a car in the pond and contacted the police.
A report from the Charley Project, an online database of cold cases in the United States, said the "vehicle was clearly [been] visible on a Google Earth satellite photo of the region since 2007, but no one had noticed until 2019 ".
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Google Maps
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Google Maps
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office told the BBC that Mr. Moldt would have lost control of his vehicle and entered the pond.
The police said that during the initial investigation into his disappearance, there was "no evidence of this" until recently when there was a change in the water made the car visible.
"You can not determine what happened so many years ago, which happened," said police spokeswoman Thérèse Barbera.
"All we know is that it has disappeared from the surface of the Earth and that it has now been discovered."
Ms Barbera said that it was a neighbor who had reported the car that had sunk and was not aware of the information that Google Maps would have been used.
The night of his disappearance, Mr. Moldt left the club around 23:00 local time (03:00 GMT), according to a report from the national system of missing and unidentified people.
Mr. Moldt, a quiet man who did not have much social contact, did not appear to be intoxicated and remained alone in his vehicle, he added.
"He was not a hard drinker either, but he had several drinks at the bar," the report says.
Mr. Moldt called his girlfriend around 9:30 pm, telling him that he would soon be home, but that he was never seen again nor heard.
Mr. Moldt's family was informed of the discovery of his remains.
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