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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Sean Morrison

Man's remains found 22 years after his disappearance as submerged car spotted on Google Earth

A satellite image of the man's car in the water (Picture: Charley project/Google Earth)

The remains of a man who was missing for more than 20 years have been found after his submerged car was spotted on Google Earth.

William Moldt was 40 when he disappeared in 1997 following a night out in Lantana, Florida.

More than two decades later, police were called to reports of a car in a lake in Wellington.

His vehicle was pulled from the water and skeletal remains were found inside. They were identified as belonging to Mr Moldt.

The discovery came as a previous resident of the Grand Isles neighbourhood in Wellington had been checking the area on Google Earth when he zoomed into the lake and saw what looked like a car.

He contacted a current homeowner, who used a drone to confirm it was a white car on the edge of the pond behind his house.

The estate was under construction when Mr Moldt went missing, but the pond was already there.

A report by the Charley Project, an online database of cold cases in the US, said: “Amazingly, a vehicle had been plainly visible on a Google Earth satellite photo of the area since 2007, but apparently no one had noticed it until 2019, when a property surveyor saw the car while looking at Google Earth. An image of the satellite photo is posted with this case summary.”

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