Authorities say they arrested a man, 23, for kidnapping teen in a Houston suburb as she walked her dog on Christmas

A Texas father used the parental controls on his teenage daughter’s cell phone to find and help rescue her after she was kidnapped at knifepoint while walking her dog on Christmas, authorities allege.

The 15-year-old girl at the center of a case, which quickly gained national attention in the US over the weekend, was reportedly kidnapped in the Houston suburb of Porter. Her parents said she took her dog for a walk and had not returned by the time she was supposed to, according to a statement from the Montgomery county sheriff’s office.

Her father subsequently located her phone through the device’s parental controls, the agency’s statement said. The phone was about 2 miles (3.2km) away from him in a secluded, partly wooded area in neighboring Harris county.

Deputies said the father headed to that spot and found his daughter as well as her dog inside a pickup truck with a partly nude man inside. She then managed to escape with a hand from her father, who called law enforcement officials, said the statement from the Montgomery sheriff’s office.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
    12·
    2 days ago

    IMO he’d get a plea bargain. To wit:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jeffery_Doucet

    Plauché was initially charged with second-degree murder [Of Doucet], but agreed to a plea bargain in which he pleaded no contest to manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years’ suspended sentence, with five years’ probation and 300 more hours of community service, which he completed in 1989.

          • Tuukka R@piefed.eeEnglish
            1·
            13 hours ago

            Suspended sentences work so that if you trigger the activation of the suspended sentence during the probation time, the whole length of the suspended sentence starts rolling. Therefore, if at 4 years and 11 months of a 5-year probation you do a crime that triggers the activation of your suspended sentence, you sit 7 years. And if you commit the same crime on day 8 of the probation, you still sit the same 7 years.

            At least over here in Finland it can also work so that the suspended sentence is only a couple of months for some crimes, but the probation is still 4 years or 6 years or whatever. People often read that “damn, only two months and they are free”, but in reality it means you must spend 5-ish years having to be mindful of not doing any similar-ish, even much less serious, crime or you’ll find yourself sitting behind bars for those two months plus whatever the repeated offence carries.

          • Stern@lemmy.world
            5·
            1 day ago

            A suspended sentence is basically “be good during probation and you won’t go to jail.”