Son’s Lost Blackberry Saves Missing Pennsylvania Woman

June 22, 2009 by Suzanne Conlon

Mary Wilkerson, 57, vanished from her Pennsylvania home on June 19th.  Authorities were able to find her trapped in the trunk of her car due to the signal from a Blackberry mobile device that her son had left in the car.

Scott Wilkerson, the victim’s son, called the police the following Monday, concerned because she had gone missing.  In talking with investigators, he remembered the Blackberry.  “I began to talk, and I said, ‘You know, I think my Blackberry is in Mary’s car,’ and they said ‘Oh my god, that’s all we need,’” Scott told Good Morning America.

Still, it wasn’t until Tuesday that authorities were able to track the vehicle down.  The car was finally found in an alley eight miles from her home.  “We started to pry the trunk, and that’s when I heard her voice,” said Susquehanna Township Police Chief Rob Martin.  “That’s when I heard her saying, ‘Get me out of here.’” 

Wilkerson had been in the trunk for two days without food or water.  “She was conscious and able to talk but certainly in an unhealthy condition,” Martin said.  She was hospitalized for dehydration and bruises and returned home on Thursday.

Her son, a clinical psychiatrist and professor at Penn State University, was impressed with her strength.  “She was cognitive, communicative,” he said.  “Not a lot of people could go through what she went through.”

Wilkerson told friends that a group of masked men broke into her home and kidnapped her, demanding money.  Police have not been able to determine a motive.  Wilkerson is not a wealthy woman, and the case has confused authorities because the victim was abandoned after being dragged from her home, from which nothing was reported stolen.

Scott Wilkerson said that he is glad that his Blackberry was lost in the car at the time of the incident:  “It is a blessing in disguise in many ways.  I am very thankful for that.”

As cell phone use has increased dramatically in the U.S. over the past ten years, cell phone evidence has become increasingly useful in solving crimes.  In addition to tracking mobile phones using GPS, as in Wilkersen’s case, photos and videos from the phones of witnesses are often used in court, and the ability of witnesses and victims to call for help as a crime happens, or immediately after, has decreased law enforcement response time.