An avid gamer, 21-year-old Harry Brown has spent a large chunk of his young life on the Internet—but little did he know, his passion would payoff in the rescue of a 4-year-old girl, a world away.
The amateur detective from England is being praised for his genius use of pizza to trick a kidnapper into revealing his whereabouts.
28-year-old Virgil Henley allegedly abducted his daughter Yvette from her grandparents, and made his way to Arizona with his girlfriend and the 4-year-old girl.
Police had been on the case since May when the kidnapping occurred, but with no luck in tracking the little girl.
Performing a little investigative work of their own, Yvette’s grandparents in California discovered that Virgil had connected with Harry several years back over their shared passion for online gaming.
Desperate for any hope of seeing their sweet granddaughter again, they asked Harry to reach out to Virgil in an attempt to uncover his location.
“When Yvette was missing, it was exhausting,” said her grandpa, Gary. “I made it my mission to find her but ended up losing the two jobs I was working. I was just desperate to find her.”
Ready and willing to help, the 21-year-old supermarket employee turned part-time sleuth.
After building trust with his old online friend over the course of a couple days, Harry discovered that Virgil had been hopping cheap hotels in Arizona with Yvette in tow.
But that information wasn’t quite enough to pinpoint where they were.