GPS Apps Helping Oklahoma Law Enforcement Solve Crimes

Stolen items in three separate crimes in the last two weeks were recovered thanks to cell phone GPS locator Apps.

The latest happened Tuesday night in Bixby where a man had his truck stolen out of his driveway. Bixby police and the owner of the truck, Ben Bailey, tracked down the suspect thanks to the app Find Your iPhone.

The technology is easy to use and highly suggested if you ever want to get the phone back.

“I went in to go get my girlfriend, heard my truck start as soon as I walked in the door, I ran outside and all I could see were my tail lights and my wheels spinning out of my driveway,” Bailey said.

8/20/2014 Related Story: Bixby Man Follows Suspected Truck Thief Until Police Can Make Arrest

He admits he should not have left his keys in his pickup when he ran in the house for a second. Bixby Police said Jesse Thompson and a second person used that short period of time to snag the truck.

“My buddy's iPhone was in the truck, so we jumped in my girlfriend's vehicle and we tracked his every move by the iPhone app, Track My iPhone, so, followed him, we're on the phone with the dispatcher the whole time. Got lucky,” Bailey said.

On Sunday night, Tulsa police said they used a cell phone tracker after a woman had her purse stolen from a city bar. Officers said they watched the suspect on GPS as he looped through a nearby gas station. When they arrested him they found her purse and iPhone.

A week before that, in the same area, police said a stolen cell phone led them right to their suspects.

Damon Doremus with Geek Rescue in Tulsa recommends every smart phone owner download a compatible GPS app, and if it is ever stolen, immediately access your account remotely and put the phone in the lost or stolen mode.

“The moment it turns back on again it will wipe itself, or it will call back home and say 'this is where I am,'” Doremus said. “There's lots of things they could do with it, but them using it as you, if you wipe it remotely, isn't gonna happen.”

While the technology helps track down stolen items, it also allows you to be watched at all time by apps you've downloaded.

A simple fix is to head to settings, privacy and location services. Then just switch the apps to off.

The find your phone apps are free and have proved very beneficial to a number of crime victims in the last couple of weeks.

Experts also say everyone should have a passcode on top of the Find Your iPhone app. They say you can call your carrier after its stolen and they can put a lock on it so it can't be used for calls or data, but photos, emails and more are still accessible to the thieves.