警方通过facebook找到迷路儿童父母

police say a security guard in Springmaid Beach Resort found a five-year-old boy wandering on the pier Thursday, looking for his family. Officers searched the beach for his parents couldn't find them and took the boy to a nearby precinct to get him to a cooler place where they could ask him some questions. And that's where police say a new investigated tool helped them out: Facebook.

Using what little information the boy gave them, detectives found what they thought was his stepmother's Facebook page.

And then by picture recognition, we were able to determine that yes, it was his famlily that we found.

So now they had his family's name but no hotel. That's when E911 dispatchers got involved.

The child said he was staying in a big building so they called all the larger hotels in the area of the Springmaid area.

Finally, dozens of phone calls later and six hours after the boy was found, dispatchers tracked down his family at Compass Cove resort, nine blocks away from Springmaid. Turns out the boy's father has recently remarried, the new family has 11 children. And the dad, 47-year-old Steven Steinmann of Kingsport Tennessee, told police he had just become aware his five year old was missing about ten minutes before police showed up.

Steinmann is charged with unlawful neglect of child. It's the kind of story that gives other parents nightmares.