Man searching own neighborhood on Google Earth solved 22-year missing person mystery

Let’s face it, we’ve all had a look at our house on Google Earth - even though there's the whole world to discover, the first thing we do is search for the home we’re sitting in.

We hope to catch a glimpse of ourselves or maybe a loved one, we might see an old car parked on the drive we haven’t owned in years, but no one ever imagines that they’ll uncover a mystery two decades in the making.

That was the situation for one man who accidentally solved a case that had been cold for 22 years when he decided to search his old neighborhood on the virtual globe.

William Moldt went missing in 1997 and his case had been cold for 22 years (The Charley Project)

William Moldt had been reported missing in Lantana, Florida, on November 7, 1997, after he hadn’t returned home from a night out.

The last person Moldt ever spoke to was his girlfriend, who he phoned at 9.30pm to say that he’d be back soon.

But Moldt never came home, and the truth behind what had happened to the 40-year-old was never discovered, that is until an unnamed man stumbled upon answers.

In August 2019, the man went searching for his old home in Wellington, Florida, on Google Earth when he noticed something bizarre in a large pond.

Zooming in on the spot, he made the chilling discovery of what appeared to be a car submerged in the water.

He contacted the owner, named Barry Fay, who flew a drone over the area and captured footage of a white car under the surface of the water.

The car was visible on Google Earth but no one knew it was there until someone went searching for their own home on the virtual globe (William Moldt (The Charley Project/Google Earth)

Calling the police, they arrived at the scene and pulled out a white sedan which Fay assumed was junk but he couldn’t believe it when the authorities found Moldt’s skeletal remains sitting in the driver’s seat.

The sheriff’s office spoke to the BBC in 2019, saying that it was likely Moldt had lost control of the car and driven into the pond, although witnesses at the time had said he did not seem drunk when he left the nightclub.

Police spokesperson Teri Barbera told the BBC: “You can't determine what happened that many years ago, what transpired.

“All we know is that he went missing off the face of the Earth, and now he's been discovered.”

All thanks to one man’s curiosity in seeing what his former home looked like, Moldt’s family and friends finally have the closure they’ve spent over two decades searching for.