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Google finds kidnapped girl

Grandma collared by Internet search
Friday, 9 January 2009, 09:14

INSPECTOR Knacker of the Athol yard found that Google search helped him with his inquiries into the kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl.

The girl had gone missing after being picked up by her grandmother on Saturday. The child's guardians contacted police after grandma threatened that they would never see her again.

Coppers in in Athol, Massachusetts, obtained the coordinates of the girl's mobile phone from her telephone operator. They found that the phone's coordinates kept coming in within 300 feet of an intersection in Virginia. However since they were in Massachusetts they were unable to have a look.

Then one bright spark stuck the address into Google Street View to virtually look around the intersection, and saw a large building nearby. The building was a hotel and the coppers thought that was where the grandmother was hiding the girl.

Virginia state police swooped and found girl and her grandmother hiding out at the hotel. The grandmother has since been arrested.

L'Inq
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nice work

by google and that person. :)

posted by : ssj4Gogeta, 09 January 2009 Complain about this comment
Hmmm

Shouldn't the title be "Police use detective work to solve crime"?

It's just sad that this is newsworthy these days.

Hopefully the intelligence services will update the appropriate data mining algorithms to ensure in future the grandmother will already have been incarcerated and this shocking requirement for procedure and thought won't happen again.

posted by : FIA, 09 January 2009 Complain about this comment
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