Someone searching their own neighborhood on Google Earth inadvertently found a decades-old body

When the former resident of a Florida neighborhood decided to look up his old neighborhood on Google Earth, he ultimately found the body of a man who had been missing for nearly 22 years.

What's the story

In November 1997, William Moldt disappeared on his way home from a nightclub. Witnesses said that he did not seem to be intoxicated when he left. He never made it home, and for more than two decades nobody knew what happened to him.

That is, until the ex-husband of Barry Fay's neighbor was looking on Google Earth on Aug. 28 at the Grand Isles neighborhood in Wellington, Florida. The man saw what looked like a car sitting at the bottom of the neighborhood's lake. He alerted his ex-wife to what he had found, and she contacted Fay, who lived right next to the lake.

Fay then contacted another neighbor who used a drone he owned to look in the lake and confirmed that the object in the lake was indeed a car. Fay contacted the local police. According to NBC News, Fay had lived near the lake for 14 months before this incident, but had never thought that there would be a body in the lake so close to his house.

"I called the former owner of my house and asked if she knew about this," Fay told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "She was shocked."

The neighborhood did not exist at the time when Moldt disappeared.

"Upon arrival deputies confirmed there was a vehicle in the pond," the sheriff's office said in a statement posted to Facebook. "The vehicle's exterior was heavily calcified and was obviously in the water for a significant amount of time. Upon removing the vehicle skeleton remains were found inside.

On Tuesday, the skeleton was identified as Moldt.