A missing girl was located last year when the FBI used her Nintendo Switch. This also got her abductor to get caught.
Unidentified Girl Gets Kidnapped; Brings Tool to Save Her
Last summer, August 3, 2022, the unidentified 15-year-old girl went missing after she befriended a 28-year-old man called Ethan Roberts. She was abducted and forced into making child sex abuse images. This villainous man traveled from Arizona to Virginia in order to kidnap her, reported ABC 15. Interestingly, he let the teen bring her Nintendo Switch console. This was his biggest mistake and the instrument of his downfall.
Switch Saves Girl’s Life
The genius of locating the girl was due to her using her Nintendo Switch to download a game and watch YouTube. Her friend saw her name pop up online and remembered that she was missing. They quickly contacted the authorities to finally locate the kidnapped girl.
After retrieving the console’s IP address, the FBI used this to locate the girl 11 days after she first disappeared. She was then returned to her family safely while her captor got caught and sent to jail.
Kidnapper Behind Bars
Last April 2023, Roberts was finally sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for various charges including creation of child sex abuse images and the transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
“It’s probably nothing that anybody even had thought of at this point,” said retired Arizona DPS director Frank Milstead. He was actually not directly involved in this case. “The fact that somebody else down the road – another child – was bright enough to go, ‘Hey, look, my friend is online, and she’s been missing, and I need to tell somebody.'”
“Everything’s connected to Wi-Fi to LTE (long-term evolution devices),” he continued. “A cell phone, an iPad, a watch, whatever it is – you can use those things to locate people.”
“The bad guys need to know that the police are watching and that you’re leaving a digital footprint everywhere you go. We will find you.”