WILSONVILLE, Ore. -- A Wilsonville iPhone user learned that technology can work against criminals after she used a phone tracking program to find her stolen cell phone.
Tuesday, a man walked into the accounting office where Stephanie Davies works and asked for directions. He said he was trying to find a Lake Oswego motel. Davies guided the man north on Interstate-5 and even drew him a map. Then, after he left, she realized her iPhone was gone too.
"It probably took me 20 minutes and I realized, where's my phone?" said Davies.
Davies had left her cell phone within reach on her office counter. When she realized it was gone, she pulled up a map of her own.
"So I go online and it shows me that the phone is at the address," explained Davies.
Using the AT&T subscription service, Family Maps, Davies tracked her phone to the exact address the man had been asking about. Right there on her computer screen she could see a circle around a Motel 6 in Lake Oswego. Davies called the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office and quickly hit the road.
"A deputy who was up in Lake Oswego called me and said, 'can you come up and meet us up here and get your phone back?' and I said, 'absolutely.'"
Inside room 118, deputies said they found Davies' phone in the hands of 19-year old Ricky Tony George.
"He recognized me first. He said, 'oh I saw you this morning.' and I thought this guy's an idiot. So they found my phone and he had all these conflicting stories about why he had it," recalled Davies.
Davies' phone had been used to make a couple of calls and to surf a pornography website, but was otherwise intact. After a thorough cleaning, Stephanie got her phone back as evidence that technology can trump criminology. Apparently there's an app for that.
