kinda like this ?
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.
“Recalculating...”
To me it looks like the sides of the pond are steeply sloped - doubt I would see it if that were my backyard.
Creepy,
to say the least.
Men are more solitary and when they die few notice.
Not really.
Ponds in Florida are home to alligators.
If he drove into water during construction of the development, maybe he was the first to arrive on the block, even before any residents? Tire tracks in a construction area wouldn’t seem so odd and eventually be landscaped.
You musta watched that episode of “The Office” on TV where Dwiight and the boss were arguing about the GPS and where exactly is was insisting they turn and they drove the boss’s brand new Chrysler right into a pond!!!
I used to drive around the country with two GPS units.
Sometimes when I came to crossroad, one GPS would say turn left and the other on would say turn right.
Didn’t matter which way I turned, I would get to a destination.
Like Ron White said when he was telling a story of a plane he was on that had engine trouble when asked where did he land he said at the crash site...
Where she was dumped after her husband had murdered her.
Several people including a former local police chief were convicted and were involved in organized crime
Wait until autonomous vehicles become the norm. Guided by that same reliable GPS, when it tells your CPU to Turn Left, it will do it without question.
I was fascinated with this story because I have lived in this region for a long time, and love using aerial photos for research and just fun browsing. These are two aerial photos off Google Map framing the date range he went missing in 1997. Left photo is Feb. 1995, right is Feb. 1999. You can see how development totally the sculpts land here in South FL. Only agricultural land and intermittent canals were here at first. I’m guessing sometime between ‘95 and ‘99 the initial water body was constructed, since it doesn’t appear a canal was right at the car location in ‘95. The homeowner said even during intervals of low water, he saw no car. The water is deceivingly murky, only at elevation would you see something. The address is 3783 MOON BAY CIR
WELLINGTON if you want to check out the Google Maps or the Palm Beach County Appraiser website to see other photos. Bing Maps provide superior birds-eye view from 4 directions which also helps study a specific from different vantage points. I am trying to attach .jpgs here, I don’t know how.
With drones becoming more and more commonplace, I bet we’ll see a lot more discoveries like this, as people send their drones up to get birds-eye views of their neighborhood.
22 years under shallow water?..and the paint still looks pretty good?....come on.....something’s f*cky.
Is he gonna be ok?
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He’ll be fine but he is looking at a ton of late fees for not renewing his license plates every year.
My daughter was with a group of friends caravanning in three cars on a multi state trip. The lead car and the last car had GPS units. The lead and second car turned onto a different freeway while the last car, driven by a very headstrong self-assured young lady continued straight.
They ignored her and let her continue on her solo journey.
She arrived four hours behind the others but made sure to follow her GPS instructions.
But was still able to vote as a Democrat …….
UPDATE: How Google Earth helped find man missing since 1997 in Wellington pond
The pond where the car was found is a stretched tear-drop shape, with homes on two sides and a guardrail on the other.
But that barrier would not have been in place in 1997 to stop Moldt’s car from driving into the pond. Grand Isles was under construction at the time. It sits toward Wellington’s southeast corner and is north of Lake Worth Road and west of State Road 7.
Fay’s home and others in Grand Isles’ Sausalito subdivision weren’t built until 1998. Only the roads and ponds were in place in 1997.
The Saturn was “heavily calcified and was obviously in the water for a significant amount of time,” PBSO said.
It was after crews pulled the car from the water that skeletal remains were found, and it would take nearly two weeks for the Medical Examiner’s Office to confirm the remains were those of Moldt
I have .jpeg showing before and after aerial shot of this exact location, but cannot figure out how to post or imbed. It is a jpeg I created, not a link. Can someone tell me how to attach it?
After a Hurricane last year, our neighbor was using his drone to offer roof inspections and providing crystal-clear images of roof damage to residents.
Unless somebody ran into it while swimming, it's understandable why it was never spotted before.
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