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.
That’s ridiculous. It’s possible the jury finds him not-guilty - does that mean you want people executed by police?
This is the penalty for a “class 1 felony” across the board. Not just this crime. So murder, etc.
Just because it’s possible doesn’t’ mean its likely. You want the judge and jury to have a wide range of options to handle many circumstances. What if a mother who locks her autistic child in her room is found guilty of “kidnapping” even though she was acting in her child’s best interest albeit in a way that was damaging? You may not want to punish her the same as a guy who grabbed a young girl off the street.