April 8, 2021 • 12 mins
You can’t really have a podcast that discusses the internet without talking a lot about Google. So this episode is all about Google’s role in real-life missing persons cases and other crimes. We’ll start with the story of William Earl Moldt.
Moldt was a 40-year-old man with a pretty average life. He was a mortgage broker. He was about 6 feet tall, and about 225 pounds. He disappeared back in 1997. He’d been out drinking at a strip club the night before, calling his girlfriend from there at about 9:30PM, telling her he was going to be leaving soon. He was confirmed as leaving the bar at 11PM.
Moldt was a 40-year-old man with a pretty average life. He was a mortgage broker. He was about 6 feet tall, and about 225 pounds. He disappeared back in 1997. He’d been out drinking at a strip club the night before, calling his girlfriend from there at about 9:30PM, telling her he was going to be leaving soon. He was confirmed as leaving the bar at 11PM.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Go up a freak kind and bitethe crowd, you know, to make
a grip our thin with a kitement. I set the Mama's ritual seat formed
Internet each Show. Welcome back toInternet Freak Show. So you can't really
(00:31):
have a podcast that discusses the Internetwithout talking a lot about Google. So
this episode is all about Google's rolein real life missing persons cases and other
crimes. We'll start with the storyof William Earl Molt. Molt was a
forty year old guy with a prettyaverage life. He was a mortgage broker.
He was about six feet tall,he weighed about two hundred and twenty
(00:54):
five pounds, and he disappeared backin nineteen ninety seven. He'd been out
drinking the night before at a stripclub, calling his girlfriend from there at
about nine thirty pm, telling herthat he was going to be leaving soon,
and he was confirmed as having leftthe bar at eleven pm. Not
much else is known about his disappearance. He just vanished without a trace.
(01:15):
Patrons of the bar said he wasn'tdrunk while leaving, and police had absolutely
no theories about the disappearance. Hewasn't being loud or disturbing anybody else's experience
at the bar. He wasn't gettinginto fights, and he was a pretty
unassuming guy, both in looks andin personality. So the case went dead
pretty much immediately. They had noleads, no suspects, no trails to
(01:38):
follow, and the case stayed deadfor twenty two years until the Internet came
along once again to save the day. In two and nineteen, a man
was using Google Maps to check outthe neighborhood of his ex wife. He
saw something very strange in a nearbypond. It looked like a sunken car.
(02:00):
He took screenshots of this unusual sightingand he sent them to his ex
wife. His ex wife then tookthose screenshots to her neighbor, a man
named Barry Faye. The pond andthe potential sunken car were in his backyard.
Fay quickly rushed to his backyard tosee if he could see what was
in the water. He'd lived inthis home for over a year and of
(02:20):
course visited that pond many times.He'd never seen anything in the water,
and the water had actually gotten quitelow a few times since he'd been living
there. He was looking especially closelyin the area that the screenshot showed,
but from the land you couldn't seeanything. So Fay called over his neighbor
and his drone to help. Thedrone flew over the lake in the area
(02:43):
depicted on the screenshot, and thereit was clear as day a sunken car.
Fay called the police, who cameover quickly and put up crime scene
tape and roped off certain areas,but all those were very temporary. By
the next morning, everything was clearedup and put away, including the car
itself, as if nothing had everhappened. And so I'm sure you've put
(03:05):
this together. But the body wasWilliam Molt, discovered missing after twenty two
years by a man stalking his exwife online and of course the internet,
satellite photos and Google maps. Intwenty nineteen, this area was a fully
developed neighborhood, but that wasn't thecase back in nineteen ninety seven when Molt
had gone missing. Only the roadsand lakes had been put in place,
(03:29):
and guardrails were not installed until nineteenninety eight, so it was pretty obvious
what happened. Molt just drove offthe road that fateful night. After twenty
two years in the real estate developingall around him. He'd simply been boxed
in, and any evidence of whathappened that night was long gone. Maybe
he fell asleep at the wheel,or maybe he turned quickly to avoid hitting
(03:52):
a wild animal. We'll never knowthe answer to that question, but at
least the missing person's case has beencleared up. Without Google Maps, this
case may have never been solved withthe help of these tools. Who knows
what other cases technology can help solve. Is it possible to build some sort
of AI system to scan other lakesacross the world to look for sunken vehicles?
(04:16):
That technology doesn't seem too out ofthis world. And this case is
fascinating to me because Molt went missingin nineteen ninety seven. At the time,
high quality satellite imagery that you couldaccess on your telephone was like something
out of a science fiction book.This was back in the days of twenty
eight eight modems, slow computers,small monitors with limited colors and limited resolution.
(04:43):
If you told the cops working thecase that this case would be solved
in the future by science fiction technology, they probably wouldn't have believed you.
In twenty twenty one, we're usedto this technology blowing our minds. So
the story might not seem so extraordinarynow, but it's worth it expanding the
idea of using this technology, eitherwith crowdsourcing or manual review of Google Maps,
(05:04):
or with some sort of AI tohelp put other unsolved mysteries to rest.
I think that technology could prove tobe quite valuable, because, believe
it or not, this is notthe only time that Google Maps helped solve
a case of another man who droveinto a lake. David Lee Niles disappeared
one night in Michigan after walking outof a local bar. So far,
(05:28):
this story seems familiar, right,Just like Molt, This case went cold
very quickly with no leads, andthe family couldn't do anything but sit around
and wait for answers, and theyhad to wait nearly a decade to get
those answers. In twenty fifteen,a man thought he saw something suspicious in
the water while he was up highon a cherry picker. A check on
(05:48):
Google Maps confirmed his suspicion there wasa car in the lake. Police retrieved
and removed the vehicle and identified theremains of David by his wallet. Just
as with police had no theories abouthow he could have ended up in the
lake that night. But I'm sureyou guys can draw your own conclusions.
Now, this only highlights some ofthe mysteries solved by Google Maps. Google
(06:11):
also has a technology called street Viewwhere they drive specially equipped vehicles around and
take multiple photos, allowing users tovirtually drive themselves through cities or neighborhood and
check things out as if they weredriving there themselves. Street View, too,
has been used to solve some mysteries, like when a man named David's
vehicle was stolen from his driveway,never to be seen again. David's son
(06:36):
was checking out their house on streetView, and remarkably, a Google car
had driven by at the exact secondtheir car was being stolen. Law enforcement
was called in and they subpoenaed Googleto release the raw images of the event.
By default, Google blurs out licenseplates and faces to protect people's privacy,
so police needed the unblurred images tohelp solve the crime. All of
(07:00):
it they did. Police made theirarrests two years after the crime was stolen.
The combination of incredible luck and incredibletechnology solved this crime that was likely
unsolvable in any other way. Intwo thousand and eight, a fourteen year
old was mugged in Holland. Policewere totally unable to help because the young
man had no way to identify hisattackers. But again, the remarkable coincidence
(07:24):
of Google street View cars driving byit just the right time helped save the
day. Moments before his mugging,the street view car caught the attackers on
camera with the help of Google unblurringthe faces. The information was forwarded to
authorities and arrests were made two monthsafter the crime. So I think the
crimes that I've spoken about so farwill inspire most people listening to this to
(07:47):
say that these are good, positivechange that technology has brought to our world.
This technology allowed bad guys to becaught, allowed us to close the
books on missing people and provide closureto families. But depending on your political
views, you may not be convincedthat this technology is always used to serve
the greater good. In two thousandand nine, Swiss police discovered a large
(08:11):
field of cannabis through the use ofGoogle Maps satellite views. Based on this
discovery, sixteen people were arrested andover one ton of cannabis was confiscated.
In Greece, Google Maps was usedto survey certain neighborhoods to see if anybody
had built illegal pools. In Greece, if you want a swimming pool,
you have to pay higher taxes,so people just built pools without letting the
(08:35):
government know. In two thousand andnine, they had three hundred and twenty
four pools being taxed in the Athensarea. After reviewing satellite imagery from Google,
they counted over sixteen thousand pools thatwere untaxed. Using this imagery,
they were able to collect taxes fromthose citizens. Another man in Italy was
(08:56):
caught dodging taxes when authorities used GoogleMaps to check out satellite imagery of the
estate that he'd recently sold. Theydiscovered the estate should have been sold for
much more than what he claimed,so they were able to go back and
collect more taxes from the sale ofthis estate. Using the data that Google
collects can be used for good,catching bad guys, solving crimes, avoiding
(09:18):
taxes, and growing cannabis might fallinto a legal gray area for you,
but there's no denying the power thattechnology, satellite imagery, and Google have
and the power that that technology andthe Internet has played in modern crimes.
I believe that everyone has the rightto be as private as they want to
be online or otherwise. There's somethingkind of intrusive about how Google uses satellite
(09:41):
imagery as well as drives cars throughneighborhoods to post photos for anybody on the
Internet to see with just a fewclicks. They take some measures like blurring
faces or other identifying characteristics to protectprivacy, but to me, that false
short of privacy. In a way, it's a perfect example of the Internet
(10:05):
sort of infiltrating the real world andvice versa. The line between your life
on the Internet and your life offlinehas never seemed blurrier than when talking about
the impact Google has had on yourpersonal and online life. Is giving up
some privacy worth the convenience that Googleprovides. That's a very personal question with
(10:26):
a very personal answer, But nomatter how you answer it, it makes
a very little difference. Google willcontinue to drive their street view cars and
improve their satellite imagery, and peoplewill continue to use that information in whatever
way accomplishes those goals. You cansupport it and agree with it or not,
but it's happening either way. Thankyou for listening to this episode of
(10:52):
Internet Freakshow. Please visit Internet freakshowdot com for episode transcripts, images,
videos, and other details related tothese stories, as well as the Internet
Freak Show Instagram account if Instagram isyour thing, and please leave a review
for this podcast on whatever platform you'reusing to listen to it. Thanks again
for listening and we'll see you nexttime. Until next time, Stave free de clergery
Go up a freak kind and bitethe crowd, you know, to make
a grip our thin with a kitement. I set the Mama's ritual seat formed
Internet each Show. Welcome back toInternet Freak Show. So you can't really
(00:31):
have a podcast that discusses the Internetwithout talking a lot about Google. So
this episode is all about Google's rolein real life missing persons cases and other
crimes. We'll start with the storyof William Earl Molt. Molt was a
forty year old guy with a prettyaverage life. He was a mortgage broker.
He was about six feet tall,he weighed about two hundred and twenty
(00:54):
five pounds, and he disappeared backin nineteen ninety seven. He'd been out
drinking the night before at a stripclub, calling his girlfriend from there at
about nine thirty pm, telling herthat he was going to be leaving soon,
and he was confirmed as having leftthe bar at eleven pm. Not
much else is known about his disappearance. He just vanished without a trace.
(01:15):
Patrons of the bar said he wasn'tdrunk while leaving, and police had absolutely
no theories about the disappearance. Hewasn't being loud or disturbing anybody else's experience
at the bar. He wasn't gettinginto fights, and he was a pretty
unassuming guy, both in looks andin personality. So the case went dead
pretty much immediately. They had noleads, no suspects, no trails to
(01:38):
follow, and the case stayed deadfor twenty two years until the Internet came
along once again to save the day. In two and nineteen, a man
was using Google Maps to check outthe neighborhood of his ex wife. He
saw something very strange in a nearbypond. It looked like a sunken car.
(02:00):
He took screenshots of this unusual sightingand he sent them to his ex
wife. His ex wife then tookthose screenshots to her neighbor, a man
named Barry Faye. The pond andthe potential sunken car were in his backyard.
Fay quickly rushed to his backyard tosee if he could see what was
in the water. He'd lived inthis home for over a year and of
(02:20):
course visited that pond many times.He'd never seen anything in the water,
and the water had actually gotten quitelow a few times since he'd been living
there. He was looking especially closelyin the area that the screenshot showed,
but from the land you couldn't seeanything. So Fay called over his neighbor
and his drone to help. Thedrone flew over the lake in the area
(02:43):
depicted on the screenshot, and thereit was clear as day a sunken car.
Fay called the police, who cameover quickly and put up crime scene
tape and roped off certain areas,but all those were very temporary. By
the next morning, everything was clearedup and put away, including the car
itself, as if nothing had everhappened. And so I'm sure you've put
(03:05):
this together. But the body wasWilliam Molt, discovered missing after twenty two
years by a man stalking his exwife online and of course the internet,
satellite photos and Google maps. Intwenty nineteen, this area was a fully
developed neighborhood, but that wasn't thecase back in nineteen ninety seven when Molt
had gone missing. Only the roadsand lakes had been put in place,
(03:29):
and guardrails were not installed until nineteenninety eight, so it was pretty obvious
what happened. Molt just drove offthe road that fateful night. After twenty
two years in the real estate developingall around him. He'd simply been boxed
in, and any evidence of whathappened that night was long gone. Maybe
he fell asleep at the wheel,or maybe he turned quickly to avoid hitting
(03:52):
a wild animal. We'll never knowthe answer to that question, but at
least the missing person's case has beencleared up. Without Google Maps, this
case may have never been solved withthe help of these tools. Who knows
what other cases technology can help solve. Is it possible to build some sort
of AI system to scan other lakesacross the world to look for sunken vehicles?
(04:16):
That technology doesn't seem too out ofthis world. And this case is
fascinating to me because Molt went missingin nineteen ninety seven. At the time,
high quality satellite imagery that you couldaccess on your telephone was like something
out of a science fiction book.This was back in the days of twenty
eight eight modems, slow computers,small monitors with limited colors and limited resolution.
(04:43):
If you told the cops working thecase that this case would be solved
in the future by science fiction technology, they probably wouldn't have believed you.
In twenty twenty one, we're usedto this technology blowing our minds. So
the story might not seem so extraordinarynow, but it's worth it expanding the
idea of using this technology, eitherwith crowdsourcing or manual review of Google Maps,
(05:04):
or with some sort of AI tohelp put other unsolved mysteries to rest.
I think that technology could prove tobe quite valuable, because, believe
it or not, this is notthe only time that Google Maps helped solve
a case of another man who droveinto a lake. David Lee Niles disappeared
one night in Michigan after walking outof a local bar. So far,
(05:28):
this story seems familiar, right,Just like Molt, This case went cold
very quickly with no leads, andthe family couldn't do anything but sit around
and wait for answers, and theyhad to wait nearly a decade to get
those answers. In twenty fifteen,a man thought he saw something suspicious in
the water while he was up highon a cherry picker. A check on
(05:48):
Google Maps confirmed his suspicion there wasa car in the lake. Police retrieved
and removed the vehicle and identified theremains of David by his wallet. Just
as with police had no theories abouthow he could have ended up in the
lake that night. But I'm sureyou guys can draw your own conclusions.
Now, this only highlights some ofthe mysteries solved by Google Maps. Google
(06:11):
also has a technology called street Viewwhere they drive specially equipped vehicles around and
take multiple photos, allowing users tovirtually drive themselves through cities or neighborhood and
check things out as if they weredriving there themselves. Street View, too,
has been used to solve some mysteries, like when a man named David's
vehicle was stolen from his driveway,never to be seen again. David's son
(06:36):
was checking out their house on streetView, and remarkably, a Google car
had driven by at the exact secondtheir car was being stolen. Law enforcement
was called in and they subpoenaed Googleto release the raw images of the event.
By default, Google blurs out licenseplates and faces to protect people's privacy,
so police needed the unblurred images tohelp solve the crime. All of
(07:00):
it they did. Police made theirarrests two years after the crime was stolen.
The combination of incredible luck and incredibletechnology solved this crime that was likely
unsolvable in any other way. Intwo thousand and eight, a fourteen year
old was mugged in Holland. Policewere totally unable to help because the young
man had no way to identify hisattackers. But again, the remarkable coincidence
(07:24):
of Google street View cars driving byit just the right time helped save the
day. Moments before his mugging,the street view car caught the attackers on
camera with the help of Google unblurringthe faces. The information was forwarded to
authorities and arrests were made two monthsafter the crime. So I think the
crimes that I've spoken about so farwill inspire most people listening to this to
(07:47):
say that these are good, positivechange that technology has brought to our world.
This technology allowed bad guys to becaught, allowed us to close the
books on missing people and provide closureto families. But depending on your political
views, you may not be convincedthat this technology is always used to serve
the greater good. In two thousandand nine, Swiss police discovered a large
(08:11):
field of cannabis through the use ofGoogle Maps satellite views. Based on this
discovery, sixteen people were arrested andover one ton of cannabis was confiscated.
In Greece, Google Maps was usedto survey certain neighborhoods to see if anybody
had built illegal pools. In Greece, if you want a swimming pool,
you have to pay higher taxes,so people just built pools without letting the
(08:35):
government know. In two thousand andnine, they had three hundred and twenty
four pools being taxed in the Athensarea. After reviewing satellite imagery from Google,
they counted over sixteen thousand pools thatwere untaxed. Using this imagery,
they were able to collect taxes fromthose citizens. Another man in Italy was
(08:56):
caught dodging taxes when authorities used GoogleMaps to check out satellite imagery of the
estate that he'd recently sold. Theydiscovered the estate should have been sold for
much more than what he claimed,so they were able to go back and
collect more taxes from the sale ofthis estate. Using the data that Google
collects can be used for good,catching bad guys, solving crimes, avoiding
(09:18):
taxes, and growing cannabis might fallinto a legal gray area for you,
but there's no denying the power thattechnology, satellite imagery, and Google have
and the power that that technology andthe Internet has played in modern crimes.
I believe that everyone has the rightto be as private as they want to
be online or otherwise. There's somethingkind of intrusive about how Google uses satellite
(09:41):
imagery as well as drives cars throughneighborhoods to post photos for anybody on the
Internet to see with just a fewclicks. They take some measures like blurring
faces or other identifying characteristics to protectprivacy, but to me, that false
short of privacy. In a way, it's a perfect example of the Internet
(10:05):
sort of infiltrating the real world andvice versa. The line between your life
on the Internet and your life offlinehas never seemed blurrier than when talking about
the impact Google has had on yourpersonal and online life. Is giving up
some privacy worth the convenience that Googleprovides. That's a very personal question with
(10:26):
a very personal answer, But nomatter how you answer it, it makes
a very little difference. Google willcontinue to drive their street view cars and
improve their satellite imagery, and peoplewill continue to use that information in whatever
way accomplishes those goals. You cansupport it and agree with it or not,
but it's happening either way. Thankyou for listening to this episode of
(10:52):
Internet Freakshow. Please visit Internet freakshowdot com for episode transcripts, images,
videos, and other details related tothese stories, as well as the Internet
Freak Show Instagram account if Instagram isyour thing, and please leave a review
for this podcast on whatever platform you'reusing to listen to it. Thanks again
for listening and we'll see you nexttime. Until next time, Stave free de clergery
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.