How text messages helped save a hostage

OLIVE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Text messages may have saved the life of a West Olive woman who was being held at gunpoint by her husband.

Mary Hartman's mother called 911 on the morning of April 22, saying her daughter she was being threatened by her husband. She gave her daughter's phone number to Ottawa County dispatchers, so they did something unusual: They texted her.

"Once we had the cellphone number, our dispatchers ran with it," Ottawa County Central Dispatch Executive Director Tim Smith said.

Authorities say Hartman's husband Matthew Hartman shot two people, killing one of them, in Muskegon that morning before returning to his West Olive home with his wife.


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