Posted on 09/13/2019 7:21:38 PM PDT by EdnaMode
Google Maps is a powerful tool if you need to know exactly how to get somewhere, but when a car was spotted in a residential pond using Google’s high-flying satellites in late August, it shed light on a mystery far more intense than finding the quickest route across town.
As the Sun Sentinel reports, a neighbor of a Florida resident named Barry Fay first alerted him to what appeared to be a vehicle sitting in a pond directly behind his home. When police investigated the sighting, they found the final resting place of a man who had been missing since 1997.
The unexpected discovery was made thanks to Google Maps, which still shows the 1994 Saturn SL sitting in a pond in an upscale community in Wellington, Florida.
When police dragged the car from below the surface they found the remains of 40-year-old William Earl Moldt who went missing one evening in 1997. It’s still unclear how Moldt’s vehicle ended up in the pond, but it’s worth noting that the area where it was found was still under development at the time he went missing, and it’s possible an off-road accident and drowning were to blame.
As the Sun Sentinel notes, finding vehicles in canals and other small bodies of water in Florida isn’t exactly a rare occurrence, and sometimes those vehicles have human remains still seated inside. Careening off the road and into a pond or canal can quickly turn deadly when the vehicle is swallowed up, but it’s unclear if that’s what happened in this particular case.
Algae bloom in the shape of a mullet.
why would anyone notice? no one was looking for him. People see only what they want and expect to see.
It isn’t as if this was some remote deep water lake, it was clearly visible just yards from a nice home and recently cut grass. Seems pretty strange to me at a quick glance.
Well, from the image it looks to me like while it’s obvious from above, it might not be visible from an oblique angle from one of the houses. But everybody likes to Google Maps search their neighborhood and I suspect it jumped out at him when he did.
Surprised that the county taxing authority did not note the vehicle and appraise the owner of the pond for having a parking structure.
Thinking the same.
“Well, from the image it looks to me like while it’s obvious from above, it might not be visible from an oblique angle from one of the houses.”
This is exactly right.
That, or he made the mistake of letting a Kennedy drive his car home.
But then again...it is FloriDuh.
Something really IS in the water.
Silas Marner’s proof he didn’t steal.
Wouldn't you think someone would have questioned the tire tracks leading into the pond?
Is he gonna be ok?
You mean Florida Man thats in the news everyday is an impostor?
Every few years, a car or truck with human remains is found in a canal or pond in Florida and a missing person case gets resolved. Usually, an abandoned canal car is found to have been stolen and abandoned after a joy ride or use in a crime. Police in some areas are overwhelmed with reports of cars in canals and ponds.
In most cases, it takes specialized divers and equipment to retrieve such a car and then forensic experts and detectives to look for remains and evidence of a crime. The cost of such an effort means that police usually just take the report of an old car seen in a canal and do little or nothing unless it can be connected to a report of a crime.
In one South Florida case, a grieving mother solved her son's long-ago disappearance when she went through local police files for canal car reports and found one that seemed to correspond to her son's car and likely route. When the car was retrieved, it was found to contain the son's remains and evidence that he had been murdered. An investigation eventually found his killers and led to their conviction.
Never be an early adopter of new technology. In this case, voice-assisted GPS.
“Turn left.”
“But there seems to be some wate...”
“I SAID TURN LEFT!”
Something similar happened here in Chicago years ago. I can’t recall who it was but the wife of a prominent person just drove off one day as usual and vanished.
She was found years later in a retention pond still in the front seat.
L
I doubt that anything you see in the picture are 22 year old tire tracks.
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