BOISE - The victim of a brutal theft speaks out saying it was her cell phone that helped to locate the thieves.

The cuts and bruises covering Janine Al-Abdullah's body seem minor when she describes the experience she lived to tell about.

"I keep thinking it happened to someone else, not me," Al-Abdullah said.

Earlier this week two women were arrested and charged with stealing her purse

"This red vehicle stops and this girl gets out and she's smiling at me and I thought maybe she knows me, so I stopped what I was doing, kinda’ stood up and she runs and grabs my purse," Al-Abdullah said. "It's in the car with her and I kinda’ stick my arm in the car and she grabs it and it's in the car with her and I just kinda’ stick my arm inside the door and the window's down and just reach in with the other arms and that's when they took off with me on the car attached.”

The thieves dragged Al Abdullah 50 feet before she fell to the ground. Remarkably it was then that she says she remembered there was a valuable clue to the thieves’ location, inside her purse.

Al Abdullah used the global positioning system in her cell phone to pinpoint the phone's location.

"I called my best friend from somebody else's phone and said ‘locate my phone right now,’ so she locates it, I hand my phone to the police officer, and she gives him the exact location within 20 yards," Al-Abdullah said.

She says it was within minutes that police had pulled over several cars in that area.

Then that's when Al Abdullah's phone came in handy again.  Police called the phone and when it rang in the suspect's car, they made the arrest.

"I never ever ever put my cell phone in my purse, I don't know what caused me to do it, but I did, it was right here in this pocket," said Janine Al-Abdullah.  "I told sprint that I am a life long customer, I will never transfer service from you ever, because of this.”