Internet sleuths help Dallas couple find missing French bulldog
UPDATE: The couple posted on social media that they no longer believe the pet was taken from their East Dallas apartment patio on March 31. Mabel was picked up near the apartment by a man who the owners tracked down and got her back from two days later.
The couple's social media post says they do not believe the dog was stolen and that their intent was not to "hurt him or anyone." They also posted that they want to reach out and "make amends" with the man whom CBS News Texas has never identified.
DALLAS (CBSNewsTexas.com) – A beloved French bulldog mix suspected of being stolen from a Dallas couple's home led to a lot of high tech amateur detective work by hundreds of online sleuths.
It was the strange expression on a dog's face that led someone driving through East Dallas on Friday evening to snap photos of a 2-year-old French bulldog mix named Mabel and a man carrying her awkwardly in dirty, disheveled clothing.
"A guy had picked her up and was walking up and down Gaston Avenue and someone took a photo of him," said Andrew Sibley.
Sibley says his dog had been stolen from the fenced side yard of his apartment and he feared he would never see her again.
"We went to the Deep Ellum police station the next morning got in contact with a detective who said they would be in contact with us Monday," he said.
But within hours of Mabel's disappearance, Sibley says someone posted the photos of Mabel and the suspected thief on a Dallas Reddit page, asking if someone was missing a dog.
Sibley saw it and responded that it was his, which led to offers of help.
"We had hundreds, hundreds of people responding to this," he said.
Those hundreds of people on Reddit and other social media sites used facial recognition websites to quickly identify the man in the photos.
Once they did, a search of mugshot websites turned up criminal convictions and a last known address at a sobriety house that just so happened to be near Sibley's apartment.
"...found his latest address and I showed up at 12 o'clock Sunday morning and it was right there," Sibley said. "He asked, 'is this your dog?' and I'm like, 'yeah.'"
Mabel was still with the man who we are not identifying because he handed her over unharmed and claimed that he found her outside wandering.
"I'm very, very happy to have her back," Sibley said.
But it's all because of the compassion and hard work of strangers who Sibley will probably never meet, that Mabel is home.
"Thankful, thankful to everybody it's a very bizarre situation with all the coincidences [and] a lot of opportunities and some luck," he said.