A Google Maps Search Finds Missing Child

Written on 9th January 2009                                                                                                              2 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.

Google Maps has been used to help find a missing child. The nine-year-old girl, allegedly kidnapped by her grandmother, has been found using a mobile phone signal and Google Street View.

A police officer and fireman in Athol, Massachusetts began looking for the child following a complaint from her guardians. Her grandmother reportedly picked her up on Saturday and her guardians became worried her grandmother might be taking the child to her biological mother in Louisiana.

Athol police had the girl’s mobile phone number and requested the GPS coordinates of the phone during recent uses from the phone’s service provider.

Using Google Maps Street View, officials identified a building that looked like a motel. They put in a call to the Virginia State Police, who visited the motel and found the girl and her grandmother.

Sadly the story isn’t quite so straight forward. There are claims from the girl’s biological mother that the girls’ guardians have been neglectful and to be involved with drugs. If this is the case, maybe this isn’t such a pretty story after all…