Apple’s Find My iDevice security service is fantastic for when you misplace or lose your iPhone, iPad, or even iPod touch or Mac, and it’s even better when you become victim to a crime. But in these times, it’s truly identified itself as something more than just something you can use to find your misplaced iPhone. Now, the service is finding missing people, as you’ll see as soon as you read this story.
On Tuesday, February 16th, an 18-year-old girl was kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend and taken over 150 miles away from her home. Police were able to find her after her mother used Find My iPhone to locate her iPhone which was luckily with her at the time of her kidnapping. CNBC has reported that the girl was found in a McDonald’s parking lot inside of a car.
A mother tracked her kidnapped daughter using the Find My iPhone app, allowing police to find the teenager in a McDonald’s parking lot more than 150 miles away.
Pennsylvania State Police were “notified by the victim’s mother that her daughter had been taken against her will by her ex-boyfriend” on Tuesday, according to a statement. “The victim’s mother related that she had been receiving text messages from her daughter requesting help. The mother was able to track the victim’s cellphone by utilizing the iCloud [and] Find My iPhone app.”
The 18-year-old victim was found in a car in Milesburg, Pennsylvania — around 150 miles east of Pittsburgh.
The thief, 18-year-old Joseph Boller, was ultimately caught and placed under arrest with a $150,000 fine set as his bail. The report above goes on to say he used duct tape to bind her hands and feet together and was ultimately attempting to exit Pennsylvania entirely with the girl
“The investigation revealed that the suspect had utilized duct tape to bind the victim’s hands, feet and mouth to remove her from East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, against her will,” the statement added. “The defendant was attempting to leave Pennsylvania with the victim.”
With the amount of crime going around in this day and age, we should all be thankful we have this type of technology available, whether you have an iPhone and use Find My iPhone or if you’re on Android and use Android Device Manager.
With that in mind, here’s a note to parents: I understand if you don’t wanna get your kid’s phone activated just for the sake of the cost, but as an extra measure of security, I recommend grabbing a cheap SIM card to pop in to your kid’s phone just so they’re connected to the internet in case tragedy like this strikes your family. A great place to start is FreedomPop, where you can get 250 minutes of calling, 250 texts, and 500MB of data every month for free. Check them out here.
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