Dad foils daughter’s Christmas kidnapping using phone’s parental controls

A Texas dad rescued his 15-year-old daughter who’d been snatched on Christmas while walking her dog — nabbing the kidnapper after tracking his child’s phone via its parental controls, authorities said.

Deputies responded to a reported kidnapping around 4:50 p.m. Thursday in Porter, a suburb about 30 miles north of Houston. They arrested Giovanni Rosales Espinoza, 23, and charged him with aggravated kidnapping and indecency with a child after the girl’s dad found the pair, extracted his daughter and called police.

Rosales Espinoza was being held without bond in Montgomery County Jail, the Montgomery County sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Alarm bells rang for the girl’s parents when the teen took her dog for a walk that seemed to last longer than usual, the sheriff’s office said in its statement. Her father zeroed in on the teen’s location using the parental controls installed on her phone. The ping led him to a “secluded, partially wooded area” nearly 2 miles away in neighboring Harris County, the sheriff’s office said.

There, he found his daughter and her dog “inside a maroon-colored pickup truck with a partially nude 23-year-old male,” the sheriff’s office said, adding, “The father helped his daughter escape from the truck and contacted law enforcement.”

Investigators determined that Rosales Espinoza had allegedly “threatened the victim with a knife and abducted her from the street,” an account corroborated by witnesses who described the vehicle and Rosales Espinoza in detail.

Detectives with the MCSO Major Crimes Unit responded and were still investigating Sunday.

No one in the family knew the suspect, including the teen, her parents told KHOU-TV Friday night. They said they were thankful to have their daughter back home safe, and that she was recovering.

Authorities also were relieved at the ending to what could have been a tragic incident.

“Christmas is a day meant for joy, but this man chose to shatter that joy by targeting a child,” Sheriff Wesley Doolittle said in the MCSO’s statement. “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.”