December 29, 2025 • 17 mins
A Texas father found his 15-year-old daughter after she was kidnapped taking the family dog for a walk on Christmas, because of a tracking app on his phone. Using parental controls, he was able to find her in her kidnapper’s pickup truck in a partially wooded area and alert police. It’s a frightening story with a significant lesson for all of us parents.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey there, everybody. It is Monday, December twenty ninth, and boy,
is there a scary story that every parent needs to
hear out of Texas. It happened on Christmas Day. Fifteen
year old girl goes out to take her family dog
for a walk, and when she doesn't come back in time,
her father used his quick thinking, pulled up his phone.
(00:25):
He had a tracking app was able to find his
daughter and it is shocking where it led him. And
with that, everyone, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Babe?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Did you I can only imagine as the father of
a soon to be thirteen year old girl, this story
had to send chills down your spine.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I don't know why it was so aggravating to me
that it happened on Christmas Day. That's not so bout.
Look any day that your child disappears and somebody takes them,
especially a guy takes a girl that type of kidnapping thing,
it's awfu. It's tragic. You can't piss a day at
all more period. I don't know why it was such
an aggravating factor for me. It seems like a lot
(01:08):
has been happening around the Christmas holidays that just you know,
even when we were talking about Brown University so close
to the holidays. Another story we're talking about this morning.
A woman accidentally shot straight bullet on Christmas Day. It's
all about Christmas Day. Really pisses me off about this story.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, this is just I mean, of all days, as
you point out, any day would be terrible for this
to happen, but this also, you just think about it.
You living in a suburb, the family lived just outside
of Houston.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
It's Christmas Day.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
You don't think anything like I wouldn't be worried at
all about my fifteen year old going out to walk
the dog.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And it was a lovely that Houston had nice weather.
It wasn't some cold blizzard up in it, right, Yeah,
it's fairly pleasant in Texas around. It was a nice day.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You wouldn't think anything of it. So yeah, and then
also I would also you might give it a little time.
All she's not back, maybe she ran into somebody she knows,
maybe she's talking to this neighbor or that. You just
would never your guard would be completely down. So kudos
to this dad who jumps on his phone. He sees
that his daughter is about two miles from his home.
(02:11):
So that's alarming, right, And then he sees it's in
kind of a wooded area, so he takes off and
it leads him to this partially wooded area and he
finds his daughter and the family dog in a pickup
truck with a twenty three year old man who police
describe as partially nude. Those moments what goes through this
(02:35):
father's mind when he sees this.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Oh, I mean there was a weapon involved here. I
mean this is dangerous and no matter what, yes, everything, everywhere,
everybody calling this dad a hero, Kudos to you. Every
police officer will tell you, don't do this, you shouldn't,
but every police officer who's a dad will also say,
hell yeah, I would have done the same thing. What
(02:58):
do you do there? This worked out, but this is
a very dangerous situation, but it And then again we
need to make clear this is not anybody suspecting that
the girl ran off with some older guy, and this
is not that situation. He took this girl at knife point,
and to think the walk the dad walks up on
that scene, who hear and.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Fury when you just described it, I actually had chills
just go down my entire body. It almost reads like
a movie script like, I'm seeing Liam Neeson going after
his daughter because I'm imagining he's coming up. You wouldn't
necessarily prepare yourself for what he saw. And yes, she
(03:35):
was taken at knife point. She's fifteen years old. He's
a twenty three year old man, and he was able
to get his daughter away safely. We didn't get the details.
Did you see any word of the details about how
he did it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It's very curious. A half naked, armed man and the
guy gets his daughter away safely. I still know I
would like to hear, though I assume we will, but
they haven't let us know yet.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
To your point, perhaps police weren't so quick to tell
people what happened or how the father was able to
get the daughter away, because I hadn't thought about this,
but you pointed it out. They don't want people taking
matters into their own hands, as much as you want
to as a parent. They're saying, please, the best and
safest thing to do was to be called to call police.
Let them walk in on the scene, armed and prepared
(04:21):
and trained to know how to handle a situation like
this better than a desperate father would.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So maybe they aren't telling us for those reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Okay, I will tell every desperate father out there, do
exactly what this guy did. I'm sorry, And that's bad advice,
terrible advice, dangerous advice. But what is the cop gonna
tell you? Has you been missing for twenty four hours?
We can't really do anything for forty eight hours. We
have to do it, That's what they're gonna tell you.
And on Christmas Day, what kind of response are you
gonna get from police? Babe?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
You're so right?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Okay, there is This man had no other choice than
to do what he did. Maybe he could have collected
some of his boys, got some more people together for
a safer trip. There is nothing one hundred percent he
did the right thing. He had no choice.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I mean, every parent knows that's exactly instinctually what you
would do. You can't wait for nine one one to
show up. You can't wait to see when and how
the police are going to arrive. And also, he didn't
know what he was walking up to see. He didn't
know that he was actually going to be walking up
on what pretty much could be worst case scenario short
of her actually already being harmed. But to walk up
(05:24):
and he to think there was no time to spare.
The man was described as partially nude. If he had
waited for police, if he had let time go by,
god knows what happened, what could have happened.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Every cop is like, nope, this is not the right advice.
Every parent, and what else do you do? Even if
he had called police and it wasn't the forty eight
twenty four hours hadn't been missing, say hey, I tracked her,
I see her here. Can somebody help me? You're still
to get them do that? It's going to take a
few more minutes. How it takes some more time? Hey
the hell? Yes? And he knows his kid. I'm sure
(05:56):
he blew that phone up was calling. She wasn't answering.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
He knew there was a You know, this is another
reminder like we all worry about giving our kids phones.
We all worry about too much screen time or they
might be distracted. This is a case where thank god
she had her phone. You know, when I go to
walk the dog, you always tell me, babe, take your
phone with you, and sometimes I forget because oh I'm
just walking around the block.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I'm not going to be gone long.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is exactly the reason why if your child is
away from you, is not next to you, not with you,
and just even doing something as mundane and seemingly safe
as walking the dog, you need to have yourself on
with you.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Parents. What do we do when they're in front of us?
All we do get off your phone, Get off your phone.
Then when they walk out, you got your phone.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It's a lifeline.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean, look, it obviously has a lot of negativity
and negative things associated with it, but thank god, and
not honestly, the fact that it was a smartphone, the
fact that you could have these parental controls put on it,
the fact that he could track her and see her
and find her, and it's really remarkable. We should mention
the guy who was arrested. His name is Giovanni Rosales Espinola.
He was charged with aggravated kidnapping and indecency with the
(07:04):
child and he is behind bars right now without bond.
Just wanted to point that out.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
What's going on in someone's life that you choose Christmas
Day for kidnapping. There's a crime of opportunity. Had he
been eyeing her for a while, been following it? Did
he just really just see someone and decide to do
Come on, okay, I get it. We'll find out some
details there, but I think yes, the headlines and the
story here, it's a nice reminder about the phones and
(07:33):
how important it is to sometimes fight with your kids
about safety controls, to fight with them about being able
to track them all the time, to say this is
important necessarily. I know grown folks with grown kids who
track them on some of these apps can even tell
that they'd been speeding. And we'll get on to the kids.
I see you were going eighty five and a forty, right,
(07:56):
all these kinds of things. It might be annoying to
the kid, but it is everything for the parents and
us having kids running around in New York City on subways.
Absolutely damn right, you're getting the phone. Everybody's getting the phone.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
You got to be in a phone at what age?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
She was nine or ten, And that was a matter
I didn't give a holy shit iPhone the whole thing.
This was a matter of to practice, to test. And
again she was about to start walking to school, being
without a parent on the street phone and she forgot no, no,
her battery went down once, she said, she sprinted home
(08:35):
because she knew her daddy was gonna lose it. If
he couldn't get in touch with her, she lost battery
power on the phone. I'm just saying, we all understand
just like this, dad knew his daughter's behavior, he knew
something was up, he knew she knew to be in touch.
I mean, this is the cool it is. I hate
social media. Sorry, you know what I mean. I'm not
(08:56):
railing institute, but I'm saying what it does sometimes with
kids and kill another TikTok and another. But man, that
thing has been an absolute lifeline. No issue like this
for me. But the number of times we've sat up,
you hear the alert go off, he said, all right,
so Bean's on the move, we hear the alerts physically.
When she goes from one spot to another, we get
(09:18):
an alert. So I love these things, and I love
what his dad did. And yes, this could have ended
up tragically for both of them.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Oh I am this. Thank God had a happy ending.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
It's one of the reasons why I felt like this
was such a good story to tell everyone, because you
could have missed this.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
It's Christmas weekend. I certainly missed this story.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
But we read it this morning when we woke up,
and we thought, this is something that every parent needs
to hear when we come back, I have to tell
you I do not track my daughters. I am rethinking
it now, but authorities say there are plenty, plenty of
options for parents out there to make sure your kid's
cell phones can in fact become a lifeline. And welcome
(10:09):
back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
And this is an important one.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
This story is incredible for parents to hear because of
what happened in a Houston suburb on Christmas Day. Fifteen
year old girl goes out to walk the family dog.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
She's late.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Her father gets a little concerned and he is able
to use the tracking system. Police didn't say exactly which
technology this particular father had on his phone, but he
was able to immediately find his daughter two miles from
their home, about to be assaulted by a man who
had kidnapped her at knife point from her family's neighborhood.
(10:48):
She was in a partially wooded area, she was in
his pickup truck, and he literally saved the day. But
you could even say that technology save the day. He
would never have found his daughter.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Why why did they not say? Why do you think
I didn't see a comment for But why wouldn't they
tell us which happy used which technology?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
One?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
There?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
They just didn't.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
They just said that it was technology, and then in
the articles they give the options.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I know you use live three certy sixty.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yes, that's the one that got friend of mine, Hey,
Sunny Austin of all people, turned me all to do it,
say yep, this is what we do and this is
how we track and show. She gave me a whole
demonstration sitting at lunch one day, and I had it
on the phone from me and Sabine by that afternoon.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And that's remarkable, I think, because my girls are about
a decade older than Sabine. When all of this was happening,
the technology wasn't there. I wasn't aware of it, so
I never installed it or did it. Because look, my
girls are now Ava's birthdays today, she's turning twenty three,
Happy birthday. I actually feel like it would be an
invasion of her privacy for me to know where she
(11:51):
is all the time. But now I'm starting to get worried,
like worst case scenario, you can't find your child. I
do know that all their friends track her, so part
of me is thinking, Okay, well, I know I could
call this person or that person and they would be
able to tell me where she is. But now I'm
feeling like I should have a conversation.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Which is weird. Why is it it's an invasion of
privacy for Mama to know where I am? But there
are fourteen people on Snapchat know exactly where I am
right now? Really, why is that?
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Then?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Who cares? Then you might as well tracked exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I want to have a conversation because this is actually
a moment as a parent, worst case scenario you cannot
find your child. To know that there is technology out
there where you can find where they are in real time,
like get a GPS location on them. That is remarkable.
Authority say too. If you don't want to give your kid,
(12:43):
if they're young enough that you don't want to give
them a smartphone or something where they could be tracked.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I hadn't thought about this.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
You can find a way to just buy Apple air
tags and you can put it in their bag.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Attach it to their backpack, attach it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
To their shoes, whatever it is that you know they're
taking with them every day that they would never be
with out. I never even considered you can track your luggage.
You could also track a person with that as well
if you needed to.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
You have unlimited options out there almost and doesn't the
Apple phone? Can't you do? Everybody just to find my phone?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yes, you can find my phone, and then you can
also look there are you're Life three sixty because they
suggest they're just letting people know, you can actually have
alert set up where when your child leaves home, when
they leave the school, when they leave certain zones. You
can actually really customize this for what you need to
know about your child. And I mean, we know if
(13:33):
you'll tell me Sabine's still sleeping. How do you know that?
Because her phone's plugged in. I can see it.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
That is crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Everyone look and so your point about the locations. It
was set at her school. As soon as that phone
leaves the school, it goes, we get an alert because
she's now somewhere else from where she's supposed to be. Anime,
she's at this home, she's on the move. It's set
(14:02):
that look life through sixth the IAI. We are not
paid endorsers, but I am endorsing it.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yes, And it's funny because not only do you see
where she goes, but then you can see when she's
spending money. All of a sudden, you go, duchin. You
can see when she goes to Chipotle. You can see
when she goes to Starbucks, and.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It tells me how fast she's going. I can tell
she's just hanging out at that spot, if she's walking
and has a little shoe that's moving, if she's well,
oh so we are, this thing is great.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
She's look, she's turning thirteen in what a week? So
right now, she's cool with that. What are you going
to do? And I actually already know the answer to this,
But have you prepared yourself for when she is going
to start asking you to monitor her less or to
take certain controls off of your phone or her phone?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Uh? Yeah, sure, we can have that conversation when she's
twenty three, just graduated college and starts paying her own bills.
I look forward to that moment. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That is the right answer.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Look, and this is one of those stories where it
is so wonderful to be able to tell this story
and have it and the way it did, Thank God.
And I hope that this is something it's making me rethink,
at least what I know about where my kids are
not because I care about necessarily at this point who
they're hanging out with. But if something went wrong, if
(15:18):
something scary happened. Look, Annalsa is nineteen, she's in college.
I'm now thinking, for sure, I want to be able
to know where she is.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
She's the one I'd be scared to see where she
is half the time hearing some of her stories. You
know what, I'd skip that one.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
And you know what's scary, like Sabine six years behind
natalis that'll wake up father up in the middle of
the night.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
But look, I give this guy, you know what they
call him, you know a lot of parents. This is
not a knock against him, but I bet he would
say this too. I'm not a hero, I'm a dad.
That's it. Some stuff we give parents credit for being
heroic and doing other parents, and those parents look at
it and say, yeah, it's called parents. Yeah it's what
that's all that is. And I guess, yes, it's heroic,
(16:03):
and maybe others wouldn't have done it. But man, he
had no choice. That was the only choice for this man,
and so I commend him. Glad it worked out, but
still we have Tom. That was some trauma. Can you
imagine what this girl fields on Christmas Day. God, a knife,
a half naked man. She's in that scenario. I mean,
this is Christmas Day.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I just think of it all the times when Annie
would go walk the dog in New York City by herself.
I actually felt safer in New York because there are
so many people around. I actually have this feeling of
safety because there are so many eyes and so many bystanders.
There's much less likely of an opportunity for someone to
take a child. But you do think you have this
false sense of security. I grew up in the suburbs.
(16:42):
You grew up in the suburbs. There is this false
sense of security that somehow, if you're in a neighborhood nearby,
you're safe. But actually there aren't as many people watching,
There aren't as many people to stop something from happening.
So thank god this father had that tracking app on
his phone.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Dad of the Year.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
On that one.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
But thank you all for listening to us. We always
appreciate you. I'm Amy Roeboch alongside TJ.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Holmes. We will talk to you soon.
Hey there, everybody. It is Monday, December twenty ninth, and boy,
is there a scary story that every parent needs to
hear out of Texas. It happened on Christmas Day. Fifteen
year old girl goes out to take her family dog
for a walk, and when she doesn't come back in time,
her father used his quick thinking, pulled up his phone.
(00:25):
He had a tracking app was able to find his
daughter and it is shocking where it led him. And
with that, everyone, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Babe?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Did you I can only imagine as the father of
a soon to be thirteen year old girl, this story
had to send chills down your spine.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I don't know why it was so aggravating to me
that it happened on Christmas Day. That's not so bout.
Look any day that your child disappears and somebody takes them,
especially a guy takes a girl that type of kidnapping thing,
it's awfu. It's tragic. You can't piss a day at
all more period. I don't know why it was such
an aggravating factor for me. It seems like a lot
(01:08):
has been happening around the Christmas holidays that just you know,
even when we were talking about Brown University so close
to the holidays. Another story we're talking about this morning.
A woman accidentally shot straight bullet on Christmas Day. It's
all about Christmas Day. Really pisses me off about this story.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, this is just I mean, of all days, as
you point out, any day would be terrible for this
to happen, but this also, you just think about it.
You living in a suburb, the family lived just outside
of Houston.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
It's Christmas Day.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
You don't think anything like I wouldn't be worried at
all about my fifteen year old going out to walk
the dog.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
And it was a lovely that Houston had nice weather.
It wasn't some cold blizzard up in it, right, Yeah,
it's fairly pleasant in Texas around. It was a nice day.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You wouldn't think anything of it. So yeah, and then
also I would also you might give it a little time.
All she's not back, maybe she ran into somebody she knows,
maybe she's talking to this neighbor or that. You just
would never your guard would be completely down. So kudos
to this dad who jumps on his phone. He sees
that his daughter is about two miles from his home.
(02:11):
So that's alarming, right, And then he sees it's in
kind of a wooded area, so he takes off and
it leads him to this partially wooded area and he
finds his daughter and the family dog in a pickup
truck with a twenty three year old man who police
describe as partially nude. Those moments what goes through this
(02:35):
father's mind when he sees this.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Oh, I mean there was a weapon involved here. I
mean this is dangerous and no matter what, yes, everything, everywhere,
everybody calling this dad a hero, Kudos to you. Every
police officer will tell you, don't do this, you shouldn't,
but every police officer who's a dad will also say,
hell yeah, I would have done the same thing. What
(02:58):
do you do there? This worked out, but this is
a very dangerous situation, but it And then again we
need to make clear this is not anybody suspecting that
the girl ran off with some older guy, and this
is not that situation. He took this girl at knife point,
and to think the walk the dad walks up on
that scene, who hear and.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Fury when you just described it, I actually had chills
just go down my entire body. It almost reads like
a movie script like, I'm seeing Liam Neeson going after
his daughter because I'm imagining he's coming up. You wouldn't
necessarily prepare yourself for what he saw. And yes, she
(03:35):
was taken at knife point. She's fifteen years old. He's
a twenty three year old man, and he was able
to get his daughter away safely. We didn't get the details.
Did you see any word of the details about how
he did it.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It's very curious. A half naked, armed man and the
guy gets his daughter away safely. I still know I
would like to hear, though I assume we will, but
they haven't let us know yet.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
To your point, perhaps police weren't so quick to tell
people what happened or how the father was able to
get the daughter away, because I hadn't thought about this,
but you pointed it out. They don't want people taking
matters into their own hands, as much as you want
to as a parent. They're saying, please, the best and
safest thing to do was to be called to call police.
Let them walk in on the scene, armed and prepared
(04:21):
and trained to know how to handle a situation like
this better than a desperate father would.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So maybe they aren't telling us for those reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Okay, I will tell every desperate father out there, do
exactly what this guy did. I'm sorry, And that's bad advice,
terrible advice, dangerous advice. But what is the cop gonna
tell you? Has you been missing for twenty four hours?
We can't really do anything for forty eight hours. We
have to do it, That's what they're gonna tell you.
And on Christmas Day, what kind of response are you
gonna get from police? Babe?
Speaker 3 (04:47):
You're so right?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Okay, there is This man had no other choice than
to do what he did. Maybe he could have collected
some of his boys, got some more people together for
a safer trip. There is nothing one hundred percent he
did the right thing. He had no choice.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I mean, every parent knows that's exactly instinctually what you
would do. You can't wait for nine one one to
show up. You can't wait to see when and how
the police are going to arrive. And also, he didn't
know what he was walking up to see. He didn't
know that he was actually going to be walking up
on what pretty much could be worst case scenario short
of her actually already being harmed. But to walk up
(05:24):
and he to think there was no time to spare.
The man was described as partially nude. If he had
waited for police, if he had let time go by,
god knows what happened, what could have happened.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Every cop is like, nope, this is not the right advice.
Every parent, and what else do you do? Even if
he had called police and it wasn't the forty eight
twenty four hours hadn't been missing, say hey, I tracked her,
I see her here. Can somebody help me? You're still
to get them do that? It's going to take a
few more minutes. How it takes some more time? Hey
the hell? Yes? And he knows his kid. I'm sure
(05:56):
he blew that phone up was calling. She wasn't answering.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
He knew there was a You know, this is another
reminder like we all worry about giving our kids phones.
We all worry about too much screen time or they
might be distracted. This is a case where thank god
she had her phone. You know, when I go to
walk the dog, you always tell me, babe, take your
phone with you, and sometimes I forget because oh I'm
just walking around the block.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
I'm not going to be gone long.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
This is exactly the reason why if your child is
away from you, is not next to you, not with you,
and just even doing something as mundane and seemingly safe
as walking the dog, you need to have yourself on
with you.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Parents. What do we do when they're in front of us?
All we do get off your phone, Get off your phone.
Then when they walk out, you got your phone.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
It's a lifeline.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean, look, it obviously has a lot of negativity
and negative things associated with it, but thank god, and
not honestly, the fact that it was a smartphone, the
fact that you could have these parental controls put on it,
the fact that he could track her and see her
and find her, and it's really remarkable. We should mention
the guy who was arrested. His name is Giovanni Rosales Espinola.
He was charged with aggravated kidnapping and indecency with the
(07:04):
child and he is behind bars right now without bond.
Just wanted to point that out.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
What's going on in someone's life that you choose Christmas
Day for kidnapping. There's a crime of opportunity. Had he
been eyeing her for a while, been following it? Did
he just really just see someone and decide to do
Come on, okay, I get it. We'll find out some
details there, but I think yes, the headlines and the
story here, it's a nice reminder about the phones and
(07:33):
how important it is to sometimes fight with your kids
about safety controls, to fight with them about being able
to track them all the time, to say this is
important necessarily. I know grown folks with grown kids who
track them on some of these apps can even tell
that they'd been speeding. And we'll get on to the kids.
I see you were going eighty five and a forty, right,
(07:56):
all these kinds of things. It might be annoying to
the kid, but it is everything for the parents and
us having kids running around in New York City on subways.
Absolutely damn right, you're getting the phone. Everybody's getting the phone.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
You got to be in a phone at what age?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
She was nine or ten, And that was a matter
I didn't give a holy shit iPhone the whole thing.
This was a matter of to practice, to test. And
again she was about to start walking to school, being
without a parent on the street phone and she forgot no, no,
her battery went down once, she said, she sprinted home
(08:35):
because she knew her daddy was gonna lose it. If
he couldn't get in touch with her, she lost battery
power on the phone. I'm just saying, we all understand
just like this, dad knew his daughter's behavior, he knew
something was up, he knew she knew to be in touch.
I mean, this is the cool it is. I hate
social media. Sorry, you know what I mean. I'm not
(08:56):
railing institute, but I'm saying what it does sometimes with
kids and kill another TikTok and another. But man, that
thing has been an absolute lifeline. No issue like this
for me. But the number of times we've sat up,
you hear the alert go off, he said, all right,
so Bean's on the move, we hear the alerts physically.
When she goes from one spot to another, we get
(09:18):
an alert. So I love these things, and I love
what his dad did. And yes, this could have ended
up tragically for both of them.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Oh I am this. Thank God had a happy ending.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
It's one of the reasons why I felt like this
was such a good story to tell everyone, because you
could have missed this.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
It's Christmas weekend. I certainly missed this story.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
But we read it this morning when we woke up,
and we thought, this is something that every parent needs
to hear when we come back, I have to tell
you I do not track my daughters. I am rethinking
it now, but authorities say there are plenty, plenty of
options for parents out there to make sure your kid's
cell phones can in fact become a lifeline. And welcome
(10:09):
back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
And this is an important one.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
This story is incredible for parents to hear because of
what happened in a Houston suburb on Christmas Day. Fifteen
year old girl goes out to walk the family dog.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
She's late.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Her father gets a little concerned and he is able
to use the tracking system. Police didn't say exactly which
technology this particular father had on his phone, but he
was able to immediately find his daughter two miles from
their home, about to be assaulted by a man who
had kidnapped her at knife point from her family's neighborhood.
(10:48):
She was in a partially wooded area, she was in
his pickup truck, and he literally saved the day. But
you could even say that technology save the day. He
would never have found his daughter.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Why why did they not say? Why do you think
I didn't see a comment for But why wouldn't they
tell us which happy used which technology?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
One?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
There?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
They just didn't.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
They just said that it was technology, and then in
the articles they give the options.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I know you use live three certy sixty.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yes, that's the one that got friend of mine, Hey,
Sunny Austin of all people, turned me all to do it,
say yep, this is what we do and this is
how we track and show. She gave me a whole
demonstration sitting at lunch one day, and I had it
on the phone from me and Sabine by that afternoon.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
And that's remarkable, I think, because my girls are about
a decade older than Sabine. When all of this was happening,
the technology wasn't there. I wasn't aware of it, so
I never installed it or did it. Because look, my
girls are now Ava's birthdays today, she's turning twenty three,
Happy birthday. I actually feel like it would be an
invasion of her privacy for me to know where she
(11:51):
is all the time. But now I'm starting to get worried,
like worst case scenario, you can't find your child. I
do know that all their friends track her, so part
of me is thinking, Okay, well, I know I could
call this person or that person and they would be
able to tell me where she is. But now I'm
feeling like I should have a conversation.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Which is weird. Why is it it's an invasion of
privacy for Mama to know where I am? But there
are fourteen people on Snapchat know exactly where I am
right now? Really, why is that?
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Then?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Who cares? Then you might as well tracked exactly.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I want to have a conversation because this is actually
a moment as a parent, worst case scenario you cannot
find your child. To know that there is technology out
there where you can find where they are in real time,
like get a GPS location on them. That is remarkable.
Authority say too. If you don't want to give your kid,
(12:43):
if they're young enough that you don't want to give
them a smartphone or something where they could be tracked.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I hadn't thought about this.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
You can find a way to just buy Apple air
tags and you can put it in their bag.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Attach it to their backpack, attach it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
To their shoes, whatever it is that you know they're
taking with them every day that they would never be
with out. I never even considered you can track your luggage.
You could also track a person with that as well
if you needed to.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
You have unlimited options out there almost and doesn't the
Apple phone? Can't you do? Everybody just to find my phone?
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yes, you can find my phone, and then you can
also look there are you're Life three sixty because they
suggest they're just letting people know, you can actually have
alert set up where when your child leaves home, when
they leave the school, when they leave certain zones. You
can actually really customize this for what you need to
know about your child. And I mean, we know if
(13:33):
you'll tell me Sabine's still sleeping. How do you know that?
Because her phone's plugged in. I can see it.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
That is crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Everyone look and so your point about the locations. It
was set at her school. As soon as that phone
leaves the school, it goes, we get an alert because
she's now somewhere else from where she's supposed to be. Anime,
she's at this home, she's on the move. It's set
(14:02):
that look life through sixth the IAI. We are not
paid endorsers, but I am endorsing it.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yes, And it's funny because not only do you see
where she goes, but then you can see when she's
spending money. All of a sudden, you go, duchin. You
can see when she goes to Chipotle. You can see
when she goes to Starbucks, and.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
It tells me how fast she's going. I can tell
she's just hanging out at that spot, if she's walking
and has a little shoe that's moving, if she's well,
oh so we are, this thing is great.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
She's look, she's turning thirteen in what a week? So
right now, she's cool with that. What are you going
to do? And I actually already know the answer to this,
But have you prepared yourself for when she is going
to start asking you to monitor her less or to
take certain controls off of your phone or her phone?
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Uh? Yeah, sure, we can have that conversation when she's
twenty three, just graduated college and starts paying her own bills.
I look forward to that moment. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That is the right answer.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Look, and this is one of those stories where it
is so wonderful to be able to tell this story
and have it and the way it did, Thank God.
And I hope that this is something it's making me rethink,
at least what I know about where my kids are
not because I care about necessarily at this point who
they're hanging out with. But if something went wrong, if
(15:18):
something scary happened. Look, Annalsa is nineteen, she's in college.
I'm now thinking, for sure, I want to be able
to know where she is.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
She's the one I'd be scared to see where she
is half the time hearing some of her stories. You
know what, I'd skip that one.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
And you know what's scary, like Sabine six years behind
natalis that'll wake up father up in the middle of
the night.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
But look, I give this guy, you know what they
call him, you know a lot of parents. This is
not a knock against him, but I bet he would
say this too. I'm not a hero, I'm a dad.
That's it. Some stuff we give parents credit for being
heroic and doing other parents, and those parents look at
it and say, yeah, it's called parents. Yeah it's what
that's all that is. And I guess, yes, it's heroic,
(16:03):
and maybe others wouldn't have done it. But man, he
had no choice. That was the only choice for this man,
and so I commend him. Glad it worked out, but
still we have Tom. That was some trauma. Can you
imagine what this girl fields on Christmas Day. God, a knife,
a half naked man. She's in that scenario. I mean,
this is Christmas Day.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I just think of it all the times when Annie
would go walk the dog in New York City by herself.
I actually felt safer in New York because there are
so many people around. I actually have this feeling of
safety because there are so many eyes and so many bystanders.
There's much less likely of an opportunity for someone to
take a child. But you do think you have this
false sense of security. I grew up in the suburbs.
(16:42):
You grew up in the suburbs. There is this false
sense of security that somehow, if you're in a neighborhood nearby,
you're safe. But actually there aren't as many people watching,
There aren't as many people to stop something from happening.
So thank god this father had that tracking app on
his phone.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Dad of the Year.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
On that one.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
But thank you all for listening to us. We always
appreciate you. I'm Amy Roeboch alongside TJ.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Holmes. We will talk to you soon.
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