PHILADELPHIA — A woman snatched off the streets of Philadelphia was rescued with the help of a GPS device that had been installed on the suspect’s car by the dealer in case the vehicle needed to be repossessed, authorities said Thursday.
It was the latest arrest made possible by the pervasive use of surveillance technology. And it involved not just GPS but surveillance video, traffic-camera imagery, and a cellphone that was left behind.
Carlesha Freeland-Gaither, 22, was resting in Philadelphia after a three-day ordeal that ended in Jessup, Md., on Wednesday when federal agents surrounded the car and seized her alleged kidnapper.
Delvin Barnes, 37, was held on unrelated charges that he attempted to kill a 16-year-old Virginia girl. Charges in the Freeland-Gaither abduction were not immediately filed.
‘‘My understanding is, even after she was in the car and bound, she continued to struggle with this guy,’’ Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey told ABC. He added: ‘‘She’s got a lot of fight in her.’’
Officials said there was no indication the two knew each other. Her rescue came after officials spotted the used-car dealer’s name on a traffic-camera photo of Barnes’s vehicle and asked the dealership to turn on the GPS. ‘‘Within five minutes they had the location,’’ Police Inspector James Kelly said.
He said the dealership sells to customers with poor credit and routinely puts GPS devices on its cars so they can be located and repossessed if the owners fall behind on payments.
Though aided by technology, the kidnapping investigation began in a decidedly old-fashioned way: with a witness who immediately called police. Police quickly discovered the abduction had been caught on video. Freeland-Gaither dropped her phone, giving police a quick ID.