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A teenage girl police said was kidnapped on Christmas Day in Texas was located by her father using his phone’s parental controls.
The 15-year-old girl from Porter, an unincorporated community north of Houston, was reported missing when she didn’t return from walking her dog at the usual time, leading her parents to become concerned, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office explained in
.
Her father used parental controls to track the location of his daughter’s phone to a “secluded, partially wooded area” about three kilometres away in adjacent Harris County.
Police said he found her and the dog “inside a maroon-coloured pickup truck with a partially nude” man. He helped his daughter escape and contacted the police.
The girl told police the man had threatened her with a knife when he abducted her from the street.
With the help of witnesses at the scene, police located the truck and identified the driver, a 23-year-old Porter resident. He was located, taken into custody and has been charged with aggravated kidnapping and indecency with a child.
He’s being held in the county jail without bond while the major crimes unit continues its investigation.
Under the state’s penal code, a conviction on the kidnapping charge, a first-degree felony, carries a prison term of five to 99 years or life imprisonment and/or a fine up to $10,000, according to
Cases involving indecency with a child, meanwhile, are a second-degree felony punishable by between two and a maximum of 20 years in prison and/or a fine up to $10,000 if found guilty, per defence lawyer
.
The family, who have not been publicly identified, told CBS News affiliate
off-camera that they do not know the suspect.
“Christmas is a day meant for joy, but this man chose to shatter that joy by targeting a child,” Sheriff Wesley Doolittle stated.
“I am incredibly proud of our deputies and detectives who worked tirelessly to ensure this dangerous predator was swiftly apprehended and is now off our streets.”
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