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Location tracker on a toy helps Philadelphia police track down kidnapped 4-year-old boy

Tracker inside child's toy helps police quickly solve kidnapping
Tracker inside child's toy helps police quickly solve kidnapping 02:07

Philadelphia Police credit a toy outfitted with an electronic tracker for helping officers find a four-year-old boy who was kidnapped overnight in Strawberry Mansion.

Officers were called to the 3000 block of Susquehanna Avenue just before midnight Wednesday for a report of a child inside a stolen vehicle. 

According to detectives, a mother left her Toyota SUV running outside a relative's house, with her four-year-old son asleep in the backseat, while she went inside to grab her phone.

Investigators said the mother was only inside the house for about a minute when, they believe, someone saw the vehicle and stole it.

Chief Inspector Scott Small said the mother immediately called 911, and, when officers arrived, she told them one of her son's toys had an electronic tracker.

"We had a family member on the phone who was able to track the vehicle," Chief Inspector Small said. "We notified our aviation unit and police because the vehicle was driving around the block and staying in the immediate area."

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CBS News Philadelphia

As officers were getting real-time location updates from the toy, a police helicopter spotted the SUV about a mile away at 29th and Flora streets, Small said.

He said officers immediately converged on the area, where they found the thief had abandoned the car while the boy was still asleep.

"The child is fine. No injuries," Chief Inspector Small said. "We don't know if the child knew what has happened because the child is still sleeping right now, but [the] child is with [the] mother, and the child is fine."

Detectives believe this was a crime of opportunity, and the family wasn't specifically targeted. They suspect that once the thief realized there was a child in the backseat, the person quickly abandoned the vehicle.

The police Special Victims Unit is investigating whether the thief intended to kidnap the child, Small said.

"Although it may not have been an intentional kidnapping, it is still a kidnapping since this vehicle was stolen with a four-year-old child inside," Small said.

As investigators continue to search for the suspect, Chief Inspector Small said crime scene technicians will dust the car for fingerprints, while detectives plan to scour surveillance cameras in the area for images of the thief.

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