Texas Father Rescues Kidnapped 15-Year-Old Daughter After Tracking Her Phone's Location (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0180470485
- News link: https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/25/12/28/197250/texas-father-rescues-kidnapped-15-year-old-daughter-after-tracking-her-phones-location
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/28/texas-father-rescues-kidnapped-daughter-tracking-phone
> 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... 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... 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.
The suspect has since been [2] arrested and charged .
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/28/texas-father-rescues-kidnapped-daughter-tracking-phone
[2] https://abc7chicago.com/post/porter-texas-kidnapping-giovanni-rosales-espinoza-arrested-charged-aggravated-mcso-says/18327940/
I'm not one to call for execution (Score:1)
Innocent until proven guilty. At which point if he were to be placed in a cell with someone prone to fits of anger and accidentally fall onto a shank a dozen times I won't shed a tear.
Re: (Score:3)
So you hallucinated a paragraph about the dog not barking and being fine. But you missed the paragraphs about witnesses of the child abduction giving description of the vehicle to police, and paragraphs about police arresting and charging the adult with aggravated kidnapping and indecency with a child? Are you okay.
Re: (Score:2)
FYI, you can be kidnapped by someone you know.
Some dogs are really stupid and others eat your face after you die.
Re: (Score:3)
But you are calling for "cruel and unusual punishment". And you do so with an incomplete picture of what happened. That makes you a problem. There is a reason these are illegal.
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Yeah, I'm sure the kidnapper had a perfectly justifiable reason for kidnapping her, which would lend the context in the "incomplete picture" that you allude to
Re: I'm not one to call for execution (Score:2)
Sure, let's totally dispense justice based on mainstream media reporting of the alleged crime. No way that could go wrong!
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Low blood sugar probably doesn't cut it. Brain tumor maybe?
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The guy was protecting her from an alien invasion. The aliens are clothing-mimicking creatures which when worn, take over a person's body.
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You are sure of that? Interesting.
Because I did not even hint at such a thing. All I said is the situation is unclear and that is the actual, factual truth. You basically requested torture, which is a thing no non-malicious person does. Abd you did it on incomplete information, which means you do not even care whether your cruelty is applied with some, however immoral, "justification".
Hang. (Score:2)
For fucks sake what makes a human so demented as to kidnap someone like that? Is it some kind of hate, or do they get overwhelmed with desire, that they dismiss and lose all empathy? Anyone who has a brain like that should suicide .. as there's likely no help for something like that .. not anytime soon anyway.
Re: (Score:1)
There are differences in brain structure visible on an MRI between most rapists and non-rapists.
Re: Hang. (Score:2)
Well the girl is a minor (15) and the guy is an adult (23) so... there's that
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They're also rather rare compared to kidnapping by friends/family.
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So yes this could have been an arranged meeting or something.
Re: (Score:3)
> For fucks sake what makes a human so demented as to kidnap someone like that?
To be fair, the reason TFS references The Guardian and ABC News in Chicago is that the headlines in Texas papers simply said, "Date Gone Wrong." Sure, getting stuffed into a trunk is usually a weekend thing there, but it was a holiday. Not sure about the at knife (or gun) point thing as everyone's armed in TX. /satire
> Is it some kind of hate, or do they get overwhelmed with desire, that they dismiss and lose all empathy?
Sadly, there are a myriad of reasons; perhaps the specifics in this case this will come out with further investigation.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly. Who does this man think he is, kidnapping and trying to rape a 15 year old girl?!? FFS, he's not the president, or a supporter of the president, or a well known wrestler, or a rich preacher fleecing his flock, so he shouldn't be allowed to get away with this!!!
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> For fucks sake what makes a human so demented as to kidnap someone like that? Is it some kind of hate, or do they get overwhelmed with desire, that they dismiss and lose all empathy?
How about mental illness?
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Because in UK, a man was a parent doing what parents should do and tracked down and rescued his kidnapped daughter from a house where she was being held by a rape gang while police refused to do anything and then got arrested by same said police for assaulting one of the rapists during the rescue.
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Can you link to the story? (I pasted your text into several search engines and there nothing obvious.)
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Likely a complete hallucination. Some people have severe trouble separating their serialized fantasies from reality.
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That should be "sexualized fantasies".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
> Likely a complete hallucination. Some people have severe trouble separating their serialized fantasies from reality.
> That should be "sexualized fantasies".
You evaluated the claims and considered them probable enough (presumably familiar with the egregiousness of the state's failure to act on behalf of citizens in the [1]Rothertham child exploitation coverups [wikipedia.org]) that you wanted to protect yourself from egg on your face by caveating a "Likely" on your doubts.
However, with the same weighing of evidence in which you hedge on your own behalf, you feel comfortable proclaiming someone else guilty of depraved sexual perversions?
Interesting principles to live by.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
Re: (Score:1)
Is this "comment" AI slop?
Re: being a parent is now news. (Score:3)
[1]This accounting [gbnews.com] seems pretty close:
> Jack knew his daughter was being exploited and desperately sought police support. He told GB News that he made hundreds of reports to South Yorkshire Police about her being missing.
> But instead of the force sufficiently investigating the issue, Jack claimed that they arrested him twice as he tried to rescue his daughter from the den.
Doesn't mention directly assaulting the rapists so if it's what OP was referring to then he may have mixed up that detail with another story.
But given these rape cover ups spanned decades and involved over a thousand cases it's hard to say certainly if it's not just another case.
[1] https://www.gbnews.com/news/rotherham-police-accused-false-arrest-document
Re: (Score:1)
So cops being lazy isn't just an American problem.
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I think a lot of parents would go crying to law enforcement, as opposed to take this into their own hands. Not judging either - some are capable of doing what this dad did, and others aren't
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Yes and so they should. Taking matters into their own hands is a great way to get yourself killed. Very few people have a "particular set of skills". Someone is going to copy this idiot and end up getting shot in the face.
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According to TFS, the abduction was witnessed and those people immediately called the cops when it happened.
> Witnesses at the scene of the abduction provided a detailed description of a vehicle involved in the kidnapping and of its driver, leading deputies to identify 23-year-old Giovanni Rosales Espinoza as a suspect, according to the sheriff’s office.
Re: (Score:2)
Very likely somebody she had a relationship of some kind. Things like this are exceptionally rare and almost unheard of by strangers, as can be seen by how this blows up in international (!) news. Hence, don't worry about something linke this happening. You daughter is far, far more likely to get severely injured or die in a car crash. But that will not make the news.
Re: 50/50 there's no knife and it was a bf (Score:2)
It used to be rare before so many illegally resident criminals were dumped in our country by Venezuela and others. They emptied their jails at us- now this shit happens.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Completely disconnected nonsense. It was exceptionally rare, is exceptionally rare and will remain exceptionally rare. And the ones dumping criminals on other places is the US, not the other way round.
What you have there is an instance of the "Big Lie" approach: [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
Re: 50/50 there's no knife and it was a bf (Score:2)
Did you actually read the article?
> Investigators later learned that the man who abducted the girl had threatened her with a knife and then grabbed her off the street. Witnesses at the scene of the abduction provided a detailed description of a vehicle involved in the kidnapping and of its driver, leading deputies to identify 23-year-old Giovanni Rosales Espinoza as a suspect, according to the sheriffâ(TM)s office. The agency said it later tracked down Rosales â" described as being from Porter â" and arrested him without further incident. Deputies said they booked him with counts of aggravated kidnapping as well as indecency with a child. No bail was immediately set for him, and he remained in custody as of Sunday.
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It doesn't matter. She's 15. She can't consent.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
> And asshole: everyone can consent.
No, asshole: children cannot consent to be raped by adults. It's rape, by definition. Don't be an asshole. And don't rape children. This isn't difficult.
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"World human rights" is not the law of the land in this country. She's still a minor, and cannot consent. We don't have to go by the perverted standards of other countries whose views fed into what ultimately became "world human rights"
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Or that it was some crazy scheme by the father. It's in Texas, abandon all reason ye who enter here.
It's texas. he could have yeeted the shitbird (Score:2)
Lethal force is legal in Texas for this sort of event...
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> Lethal force is legal in Texas for this sort of event...
To prevent or end a kidnapping, lethal force is legal in pretty much every state, though there is some variation in the burden of proof. To take revenge on a kidnapper once the girl is free, lethal force is not legal in any state, not even Texas.
Contrary to popular belief, Texas is a pretty middle of the road state with respect to legality of lethal force. It has more restrictive concealed carry license requirements than many states, and more restrictions on where you can carry than many states. Texas
You insensitive clod! (Score:2)
> Texas authorizes the use of lethal force to protect property from theft or criminal mischief at night. No other state allows this, and Texas doesn't allow it during daylight.
I'm blind. I don't know when it's daylight.
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>> Texas authorizes the use of lethal force to protect property from theft or criminal mischief at night. No other state allows this, and Texas doesn't allow it during daylight.
> I'm blind. I don't know when it's daylight.
You're blind. You shouldn't shoot guns.
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The self-defense instructors and lawyers I've talked to have said the law allows the use of deadly force only if you perceive an immediate threat to your life. Threats to your freedom, property, or general "safety" don't quality.
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> The self-defense instructors and lawyers I've talked to have said the law allows the use of deadly force only if you perceive an immediate threat to your life. Threats to your freedom, property, or general "safety" don't quality.
That's a good general rule, but the details vary a lot from state to state. Two general corrections I'd add are that all jurisdictions (1) allow you to defend other people, too, not just yourself, and (2) threats of serious bodily harm qualify, not just threats of death.
Beyond that, most jurisdictions authorize the use of lethal force for preventing certain classes of felonies that pose grave risk of harm to people. The felonies generally include arson (because there might be people in the building; some
Another good reason (Score:2)
Not to ban cell phones in schools.
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This happened on a public street.
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I think the point was some kids walk home from school. Though banning phones in classrooms and allowing them in lockers would let kids walk to/from school with them.
Glad she's safe, but stalkers use same skills (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd guess a story like this takes our minds off of the people who have been stalked by their electronic devices. I'm glad she's safe.
Kidnapper and Dad both lucky to be alive (Score:2)
Kidnapper lucky Dad didn't have a gun.
Dad lucky kidnapper didn't have one.
Note to self: If loved one is kidnapped and I know where they are, tell the cops and let them handle it. They are trained in how not to get killed and their aim is better than mine.
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> Note to self: If loved one is kidnapped and I know where they are, tell the cops and let them handle it. They are trained in how not to get killed and their aim is better than mine.
What? Cops can shoot innocent bystanders all day and nothing happens. Take this for example, 9 people injured from bullets and bullet fragments. [1]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/e... [cbsnews.com]
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/empire-state-building-shooting-sparks-questions-about-nypd-shot-accuracy/
Re: Kidnapper and Dad both lucky to be alive (Score:1)
Or like this situation, where the cops killed the kidnapped girl they were trying to rescue. Great job guys!
[1]https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68726119
Re: (Score:3)
If it came down to "the perp is going to escape with the girl, unless I risk my life" .. what choice do you think the cop is making? I'm not saying don't invite them .. invite them .. but make sure you're there too. Just in case you get ex Uvalde or Bondi beach cops.
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Everybody's mileage varies. You or I may not be great aiming a gun, but there are other people who are. Such people would be fully justified in doing what this dad did
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It's Texas. Dad probably did have a gun, and may have used it to secure his daughter's safety.
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Only around one-third of adults in Texas own a gun, so in the absence of other information it cannot be said that the father "probably" had a gun. In fact, Texas ranks somewhere in the middle of US States by percentage of adults owning a gun.
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Yeah but would you risk tracking your daughter down alone without packing heat? You'd want to be armed.
Anyone want to bet if the perp is illegal? (Score:1, Troll)
I give 10-to-1 odds he is not here legally.
Re: (Score:2)
Only Trump-followers think that immigrants are more likely criminals than US citizens. And don't give me the crap about "illegal" immigrants. Trump has done everything in his power to make ALL immigrants illegal, including refugees and asylum seekers.
So ... (Score:2)
... what happened to the dog?
Re: (Score:2)
Also abducted. I think we have to assume it was one of those toy dogs that fit in a woman's purse. There is no way in hell she would have been abducted if she were walking my dog.
He had a particular set of skills (Score:4, Funny)
Skills that make him a nightmare for people like you.