A Nintendo Switch helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation locate a missing 15-year-old girl. The Virginia native went missing in August 2022, and was found 11 days later thanks to joint efforts between the FBI, Nintendo, and the girl’s friends and family. Court documents obtained by Arizona’s ABC 15 reveal that the girl befriended 28-year-old Ethan Roberts online. Roberts is alleged to have traveled from Tolleson, Arizona to get her, before forcing her into child pornography. Roberts allowed the girl to bring her Nintendo Switch with her, and a friend noticed her online status after she’d been reported missing.
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For those that have never used a Nintendo Switch, the system notifies users when their friends are online, and even what games or apps are being used on the system. The missing girl’s friend reported seeing the online status to authorities, who then contacted Nintendo. The video game company was able to provide the FBI with location data used to obtain the girl’s IP address. The girl was tracked to Roberts’ apartment, and the suspect was placed under arrest. The girl’s identity has not been reported due to her status as a minor. ABC 15 spoke to retired Arizona DPS Director Frank Milstead, who noted that the Nintendo Switch console probably wasn’t something that anyone else involved in the search would have thought of.
“It’s probably nothing that anybody even had thought of at this point,”saidMilstead. “The fact thatsomebody 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 totell somebody.’”
Hopefully, other investigators will think to do the same in the future! While devices like cell phones are often used to track down missing teens, a video game handheld like the Nintendo Switch might not be the first thing that police and the FBI would think to use. However, in this case, it may have saved someone’s life.
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[H/T: GameSpot]
