Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / 13-year-old girl 'Letty' kidnapped, drugged, SOLD for sex, commits suicide.

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13-year-old girl 'Letty' kidnapped, drugged, SOLD for sex, commits suicide. · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:06
Speaker 1: Today on Crime Stories, we traveled to Houston, Texas. Letty
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Speaker 1: was a sex trafficking victim. According to her loved ones.
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Speaker 1: She disappeared two years ago at age thirteen. They say
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Speaker 1: she was drugged and sold, and even after they found
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Speaker 1: her near the Bayou at Moody Park and brought her home,
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Speaker 1: she was not the saint. Joining Nancy Grace, Adam Cheney,
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Speaker 1: co founder of Elijah Rising, Ashley Kelly, licensed clinical social worker,
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Speaker 1: Joe Scott Morgan, forensic expert, professor of forensics and author
0:34
Speaker 1: of Blood Beneath My Feet, Doctor Michelle Duprie, medical examiner
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Speaker 1: and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide, and Levi Paige,
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Speaker 1: investigative reporter for Crime Online. Crime Stories. With Nancy Grace,
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Speaker 1: Letty Sarano was just fifteen. She celebrated her King Sinera
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Speaker 1: in May. A typical high school student with a loving family.
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Speaker 1: She was a great girl, good student, friendly, loved her puppies.
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Speaker 1: But on Saturday she ended her own life, a life
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Speaker 1: it turns out was not typical. Letty was a sex
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Speaker 1: trafficking victim. According to her loved ones, She disappeared two
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Speaker 1: years ago at age thirteen. They say she was drugged
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Speaker 1: and sold, and even after they found her near the
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Speaker 1: bayou at Moody Park and brought her home, she was
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Speaker 1: not the same. We got her back damaged. Her father
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Speaker 1: told us she was his life. He's broken. She loved him,
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Speaker 1: he loved her. He is destroyed. He said it is
1:39
Speaker 1: too painful and he wants justice. They're raising money on
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Speaker 1: Facebook to offset funeral expenses, but more than money, they
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Speaker 1: want to raise awareness. They want people to know how
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Speaker 1: prevalent sex trafficking is in Houston. How Letty is a
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Speaker 1: cautionary tale that the pain of what happened never goes away.
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Speaker 1: I feel like I let her down. I feel like
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Speaker 1: I let her down. I don't know. I just feel
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Speaker 1: I should have. I don't know. You are hearing Letty's godmother,
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Speaker 1: Cynthia Rivera our friends at ABC thirteen Houston. That was
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Speaker 1: Tom Abraham's talking about this beautiful girl, Letty. At age thirteen,
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Speaker 1: Letty was kidnapped, drugged, and raped and put into sex trafficking.
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Speaker 1: She was ultimately rescued, but too late, at just fifteen
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Speaker 1: years old. After what she had lived through, Letty commits suicide.
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Speaker 1: What happened to Letty? You know when I hear the
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Speaker 1: phrase sex trafficking. I think of some foreign country, a
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Speaker 1: third world nation where children and women don't have any rights.
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Speaker 1: But that's not true. This is happening right here in
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Speaker 1: our beloved country. With me Adam Cheney, co founder of
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Speaker 1: Elijah Rising, Ashley Kelly, licensed clinical social worker, her expertise
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Speaker 1: child abuse and sex trafficking. Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert
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Speaker 1: professor at Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath
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Speaker 1: My Feet on Amazon. But right now to Crime online
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Speaker 1: dot Com investigative reporter Levi, Paige Levi, how did this
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Speaker 1: little girl, just thirteen, that's only about a year and
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Speaker 1: a half older than my Lucy and John David end
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Speaker 1: up drugged rate and sold into sex trafficking in America? Yes,
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Speaker 1: this is in Houston, Texas as Nancy, And she was
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Speaker 1: thirteen years old attending Marshall Middle School and in twenty seventeen,
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Speaker 1: you know, she was a high achieving student, very very
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Speaker 1: nice young woman, and she ended up in sex trafficking
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Speaker 1: at school. That's where she met up with this per
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Speaker 1: and her family found her in an abandoned home after
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Speaker 1: looking for her for days, and they say that she
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Speaker 1: had never been the same since she had been abducted,
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Speaker 1: since she had been drugged in sex traffic. Joining me
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Speaker 1: right now, renowned trial lawyer Penny Douglas for a penny.
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Speaker 1: You and I have seen it first hand. And the
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Speaker 1: number one hub for trial sex trafficking is the Atlanta Airport,
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Speaker 1: the number one hub in the US, Penny. People think
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Speaker 1: it's not happening here, It's happening here, Auntie. It's happening everywhere.
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Speaker 1: And we have failed this girl as a country because
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Speaker 1: she came out so damaged. There's no fun for victims.
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Speaker 1: There's no national health care so she can go and
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Speaker 1: get care. And if she doesn't have any access to
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Speaker 1: any kind of psychological treatment or psychiatric treatment, it gets
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Speaker 1: worse over time, it gets worse. You can imagine how
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Speaker 1: this child feels after going through that, and I'm sure
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Speaker 1: her friends talk about it, and it's horribly embarrassing for her,
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Speaker 1: and she needs treatment. We have to do something to
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Speaker 1: make sure we have something for victims so that they
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Speaker 1: can get the treatment they need, otherwise they'll be more suicide.
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Speaker 1: To Adam Cheney, co founder of Elijah Rising, you can
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Speaker 1: find it at Elijah Rising dot org. Adam Cheney Way
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Speaker 1: in the guests that just spokes exactly right. This is
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Speaker 1: happening everywhere. Sex trafficking has existed in the United States forever,
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Speaker 1: and we work here in Houston and it is it's everywhere.
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Speaker 1: I mean it's it's in every neighborhood. It looks like
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Speaker 1: every demographic in terms of age, socioeconomic status, skin tone,
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Speaker 1: all the above. And so unfortunately, Letty's story, though it
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Speaker 1: is making national headlines, is far more common than most
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Speaker 1: people realize. And I mean, it's an epidemic. At Elijah Rising,
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Speaker 1: we say, you know, there's no such thing as a
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Speaker 1: red light district anymore. We've got red light cities, We've
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Speaker 1: got red light you know, counties. It's happening everywhere, and
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Speaker 1: and it's tragic. It's it's absolutely tragic, and there does
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Speaker 1: need to be more outcry. There does need to be
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Speaker 1: more awareness, and that's what we're doing at Elijah Rising
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Speaker 1: is trying to do that and provide the long term
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Speaker 1: care that survivors need. Because your previous guest is exactly right.
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Speaker 1: Without long term trauma informed care in a resident based
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Speaker 1: system with professional mental health care and physical healthcare, survivors
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Speaker 1: do not have an opportunity to become whole again. It's
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Speaker 1: the biggest gap in this issue. It's providing that long
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Speaker 1: term trauma in form care. This little girl, Letitia no
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Speaker 1: myr family as Letty had just celebrated her fifth eighth
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Speaker 1: birthday party with a lavish kincinera party with a ruby
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Speaker 1: red princess ball gown, roses a dessert bar put on
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Speaker 1: by her family. I'm looking at the pictures of her
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Speaker 1: at the party right now. But then shortly after that,
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Speaker 1: Letty locked herself in the bathroom and committed suicide as
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Speaker 1: her dad desperately tried to get in touch with her
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Speaker 1: and reach her. By the time he opened the door,
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Speaker 1: it was too late and she died in her father's arms.
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Speaker 1: This is a direct result of her being drugged, kidnapped
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Speaker 1: and raped at age thirteen and sold into sex trafficking.
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Speaker 1: To Ashley Kelly, licensed clinical social worker whose expertise is
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Speaker 1: child abuse and sex trafficking weight in Ashley, Yeah, Unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: like like the others have said, this is not uncommon.
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Speaker 1: In fact, thirteen of the average age of entry for
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Speaker 1: sex trafficking in this country. Or doing a lot of
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Speaker 1: research out here in Phoenix, in Las Vegas in recreating
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Speaker 1: techniques and different things like that to try to combat
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Speaker 1: and prevent this from happening from kid to kids like
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Speaker 1: Letty unfortunately. Take a listen to Voice of America's Caroline PURSUITI.
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Speaker 1: It started when Kate was in the ninth grade. Her abductor, Luise,
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Speaker 1: who has never been charged in this case, was enrolled
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Speaker 1: at her high school. He was twenty one years old,
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Speaker 1: she was fourteen. The first thing he ever said when
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Speaker 1: he messaged me on Facebook, before I was high or anything,
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Speaker 1: was you have beautiful eyes. Kate fell in love. At night,
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Speaker 1: Luise would knock on her bedroom window and sneak her
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Speaker 1: out to parties. But one night she didn't come home.
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Speaker 1: I was with all these old men, but all I
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Speaker 1: saw was they thought I was pretty. They gave me attention.
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Speaker 1: I remember blacking out. Some things are still really blurried
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Speaker 1: to this day. Had lots of bruises and lots of
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Speaker 1: internal damage. Later, she learned Luis was a member of
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Speaker 1: MS thirteen, a vicious Central American gang. Barely a teenager,
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Speaker 1: Kate was being drugged with heroin and PCP and sold
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Speaker 1: for sex to make money for the gang. You are
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Speaker 1: hearing that story, the girl, We are talking about was
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Speaker 1: drugged much the same way. At age thirteen. She Letty
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Speaker 1: was a very high achieving student, an honor student at
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Speaker 1: Marshall Middle School Middle school. My children are in middle
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Speaker 1: school right now. She was not far away from school
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Speaker 1: when she was kidnapped and drugged and taken by a
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Speaker 1: sex trafficker. Joining me right now, Joseph Scott, Morgan, forensics
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Speaker 1: expert and professor of forensics. How does it happen? Jo Scott? Listen,
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Speaker 1: these children are targeted. They're seen as vulnerable, weak. Maybe
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Speaker 1: you know they're not surrounded by someone that watch cares
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Speaker 1: over them, very very carefully. And even in cases where
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Speaker 1: they are surrounded by people, these perpetrators can still get
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Speaker 1: to them because they're easily manipulator. Remember reflectively what the
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Speaker 1: young woman said, You've got beautiful eyes. You know what
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Speaker 1: young lady would not like to hear that, particularly at
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Speaker 1: that particular age, and going to Letty's case in particular, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: I think that many people across the country don't realize
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Speaker 1: how prevalent suicide is. I work for the Medical Examiner
10:45
Speaker 1: in Atlanta and the Corner in New Orleans, and you know,
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Speaker 1: suicide actually outpaces homicide almost two, sometimes three to one,
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Speaker 1: and you never know about the dark secrets that people hold.
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Speaker 1: In her case, this speaks volumes the trauma that she
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Speaker 1: went through, the things that she was forced to do,
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Speaker 1: the things that burden that she had to bear all
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Speaker 1: by herself, and of course she wound up ending her
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Speaker 1: life in that bathroom. At age thirteen, Letty was kidnapped, drugged,
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Speaker 1: and forced into sex work by the perpetrator and older man.
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Speaker 1: I'm looking at pictures of her right now that were
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Speaker 1: posted when she went missing, her family desperate to find her.
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Speaker 1: She actually has pigtails in the picture. She looks like
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Speaker 1: she's about ten. Now she's dead. To leavipage climb online
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Speaker 1: dot com investigative reporter, where you can find this and
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Speaker 1: all other breaking crime and justice news. Levi. How was
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Speaker 1: she kidnapped? She was near school property, Nancy, when she
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Speaker 1: came in contact with this sex trafficker and he drugged her.
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Speaker 1: So that was how he was able to take control
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Speaker 1: of her. And her grandmother had been searching for her
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Speaker 1: and searching for her for days and under in an
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Speaker 1: abandoned house. Drugged. I mean, can you imagine that, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: and she's thirteen years old, She's in middle school and
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Speaker 1: was a good student, made great grades, and ended up
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Speaker 1: dying in her father's arm arms after she locked herself
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Speaker 1: in the bathroom, just not long after her fifteenth birthday.
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Speaker 1: And I'm looking at pictures of her birthday party, and
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Speaker 1: she in those two years, she had grown up to
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Speaker 1: be a very beautiful young woman, and that obviously you
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Speaker 1: can't see the pain that she was masking inside through
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Speaker 1: those pictures because she looks so happy there and then
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Speaker 1: days later she's dead. It's heartbreaking. It's really heartbreaking. Crime
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Speaker 1: stories with Nancy Grace drove me off into an industrial
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Speaker 1: area and he's customed at me, and he told me
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Speaker 1: he's going to kill me if I didn't do what
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Speaker 1: he told me to do. But I looked on the
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Speaker 1: dashboard and there's this picture of this little girl, and
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Speaker 1: I asked him, you know, is that your daughter? And
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Speaker 1: he said yeah, And I said, I'm somebody's daughter too,
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Speaker 1: you know, will you please let me go? I'd had
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Speaker 1: a pimp tell me that I wasn't going to make
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Speaker 1: it trying to get out. You were hearing the voice
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Speaker 1: of Leah Jeanette Albrightberg, a survivor from California's forgotten children
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Speaker 1: talking about child sex trafficking victims. Those few survived, Letty
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Speaker 1: did not. I'm Nancy Grace. This is crime Stories. Thank
13:48
Speaker 1: you for being with us. Back to Adam Cheney, co
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Speaker 1: founder of Elijah Rising. You can find it at Elijah
13:54
Speaker 1: Rising dot org. Adam Cheney. How big is this epidemic
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Speaker 1: in our country the US, Nancy, It's it's an epidemic.
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Speaker 1: You use the right term. There are millions of individuals
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Speaker 1: that are being sex trafficked all over the world and
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Speaker 1: the United States. The research is not exactly perfect, but
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Speaker 1: I can talk about Texas because that's where we focus.
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Speaker 1: We know that there are seventy nine thousand miners that
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Speaker 1: are being trafficked sex trafficked in particular sex trafficking, seventy
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Speaker 1: nine thousand sex trafficking miners in Texas, and just in
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Speaker 1: terms of trafficking in general. The estimates are about three
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Speaker 1: hundred and thirteen thousand trafficking victims in Texas as a whole,
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Speaker 1: but you know, nearly eighty thousand children and being trafficked
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Speaker 1: here in this state. I mean, if it were just
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Speaker 1: if it were just one individual, if it were just
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Speaker 1: one child being trafficked in our city. You know, we
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Speaker 1: need to raise an alarm, don't we, But it's at
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Speaker 1: epidemic proportions. Take a listen to our friends and XYZTV.
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Speaker 1: We took a ride along with police and one case,
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Speaker 1: officers found a fourteen year old sting in a vacant house.
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Speaker 1: He hadn't eaten a meal in three days. Those are
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Speaker 1: the types of kids that we're dealing with in this
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Speaker 1: and it's really sad. Once recovered, the next step is
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Speaker 1: to ask a series of questions to find out if
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Speaker 1: there were sex trafficking victims, who did they stay with,
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Speaker 1: Did somebody pay for you know, pay for them to
15:25
Speaker 1: stay somewhere, did they do favors for them? Did they
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Speaker 1: give them drugs? Officials tell us one in six runaways
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Speaker 1: get involved in sex trafficking. By finding them and not
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Speaker 1: only saves their life, but it could lead police to
15:38
Speaker 1: the traffickers. In less than a day, Lawn Centials recovered
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Speaker 1: more than one hundred missing kids from Wayne County. Of those,
15:46
Speaker 1: three sex trafficking cases have opened. If we can do
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Speaker 1: this more often, hopefully we won't have this big of
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Speaker 1: a problem. You're hearing our friend at Detroit's w x
15:55
Speaker 1: y ZTV that was Seema Chaudry. Listen, when law enforcement
15:59
Speaker 1: official deal with cases involving missing children, there's a lot
16:03
Speaker 1: of layers that have to be peeled back, a lot
16:05
Speaker 1: of questions that are being asked, where have these kids been?
16:08
Speaker 1: Are the victims of other crimes? While answering those questions
16:12
Speaker 1: and finding those kids where the goal today sweeps. Police
16:17
Speaker 1: officers are cambing through neighborhoods and knocking on doors as
16:20
Speaker 1: they look for children who have gone missing, many of
16:22
Speaker 1: them considered high risk youth. Not only to recover children
16:26
Speaker 1: they have been reported missing, but the underlying tone in
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Speaker 1: this was to find the hidden victims of sex trafficking.
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Speaker 1: That's the goal of Operation My Safe Kid. Very often
16:35
Speaker 1: we hear to you, Joseph Scott Morgan, of missing children.
16:39
Speaker 1: But I don't think people put two or two together
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Speaker 1: to realize that the missing children are being sex trafficked. No,
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Speaker 1: I don't think they do, Nancy, because it seems so outland,
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Speaker 1: it's so far fetched that people don't believe that this
16:54
Speaker 1: is actually going on. As I know that you have.
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Speaker 1: I have been out on a number of you know,
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Speaker 1: cases over the course of my career, and I've come
17:03
Speaker 1: face to face with the reality of this where and unfortunately,
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Speaker 1: in the cases that I was involved in, they all
17:09
Speaker 1: ended in death. But very young women and males that
17:14
Speaker 1: wound up either taking their own lives or they were
17:17
Speaker 1: killed out on the streets that were engaged in in
17:23
Speaker 1: the sex industry. And this starts out very very young.
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Speaker 1: And you know, what's what's really kind of poignant about
17:29
Speaker 1: this is that when you talk to the survivors out
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Speaker 1: on the street and you're interviewing them, they're traumatized, but
17:37
Speaker 1: yet they're very worldly, you know, and kids, kids, when
17:41
Speaker 1: you're fifteen and you're sixteen, and you're seventeen, you should
17:45
Speaker 1: not be able to communicate in the manner in which
17:49
Speaker 1: some of these kids communicate because they've had to do
17:52
Speaker 1: this in order to survive. And it's a horrible, horrible
17:55
Speaker 1: cycle that these kids are caught up in. And he
17:59
Speaker 1: sit back and you just, you know, sometimes you weep
18:01
Speaker 1: over it because there's no way to kind of pull
18:03
Speaker 1: them out of it. Many times, you know, I'm taking
18:06
Speaker 1: a look at all of the stories that we are
18:08
Speaker 1: gathering about child six trafficking victims. Listen to this and
18:12
Speaker 1: juvenile Hall, I had given up on life. I thought
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Speaker 1: I won't live. I won't live past sixteen. There's no
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Speaker 1: way I'm gonna make it. And I was only thirteen.
18:20
Speaker 1: I wasn't even fourteen yet, and I couldn't see myself
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Speaker 1: making it to sixteen. Maybe I'm in fifteen. It just
18:26
Speaker 1: wasn't even a thought that I would well by the time.
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Speaker 1: When I was trafficked at twelve, I should have been
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Speaker 1: dead by nineteen. I mean, that's the statistics a seven
18:34
Speaker 1: year life expectancy, and that's what should have happened to me.
18:37
Speaker 1: But fortunately someone came into my life and planted this
18:43
Speaker 1: seed and said, you have potential. And then I started
18:48
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what that meant. This message that
18:51
Speaker 1: we can all do something needs to get out there.
18:54
Speaker 1: We have our unique abilities talents, and we can develop
18:58
Speaker 1: them and we can change the world with them. That's
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Speaker 1: Carrissa Phelps, a survivor of child sex trafficking. Listen to me.
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Speaker 1: My childhood was filled with just constant trauma, and at
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Speaker 1: the same time I had to hide it and had
19:12
Speaker 1: to act like it was a normal childhood life. People
19:16
Speaker 1: often want to assume that when I say that I'm
19:18
Speaker 1: a survivor of sex trafficking, that I'm from Southeast Asia,
19:21
Speaker 1: and I fit that stereotype. So I want people to
19:23
Speaker 1: know that it happens here and that I'm a US citizen,
19:26
Speaker 1: was born here and them I was sold here. Crime
19:45
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. People often want to assume that
19:54
Speaker 1: when I say that I'm a survivor of sex trafficking,
19:55
Speaker 1: that I'm from Southeast Asia and I fit that stereotype.
19:59
Speaker 1: So I want people to know that it happens here.
20:01
Speaker 1: In the I'm a US citizen there, was born here,
20:03
Speaker 1: and I was able to hear you were hearing from
20:07
Speaker 1: California's Forgotten Children, and it is an expos on child
20:12
Speaker 1: sex trafficking in our country. Back to Levi page Crime
20:16
Speaker 1: online dot Com investigative reporter. We started off talking about
20:20
Speaker 1: this beautiful girl, Letitia Letty, who commits suicide at age
20:25
Speaker 1: fifteen after she was kidnapped, drugged, and raped at just
20:29
Speaker 1: thirteen years old near her middle school. It's almost really
20:35
Speaker 1: too much to take in. But then we switched to
20:39
Speaker 1: a sting that went down where a hundred child sex
20:42
Speaker 1: trafficking victims were saved in a different jurisdiction. So, in
20:47
Speaker 1: this particular case with Letty, LEVI, what's happened to her pimp,
20:51
Speaker 1: her kidnapper Nancy. He's unnamed, and according to family members,
20:56
Speaker 1: they have said that he was checked into jail, arrested,
21:00
Speaker 1: and then released a few days later. And the family
21:03
Speaker 1: has blamed him for Letty's suicide and they want to
21:07
Speaker 1: see him in court and they want to see him
21:09
Speaker 1: answer for what he's done. And the Houston Police Department
21:13
Speaker 1: had a commander that gave an interview with The Daily
21:16
Speaker 1: Mail and he said that he is reopening the case
21:19
Speaker 1: involving Letty. So hopefully this will lead to an arrest
21:22
Speaker 1: in the person that took advantage of her and caused
21:26
Speaker 1: her to end her life so early will be brought
21:29
Speaker 1: to justice. We can only hope to Joe Scott Morgan.
21:32
Speaker 1: Of course, drugs play a major role in this. We
21:35
Speaker 1: know what drugs do to adults, but these little girls
21:39
Speaker 1: are being fed or josed with heroin, major drugs that
21:45
Speaker 1: cause them to pass out and then when they wake up,
21:47
Speaker 1: they're addicted. Yeah, you're you're right, Nancy. And let's reflect
21:51
Speaker 1: back to what the one victim stated, she still has
21:54
Speaker 1: this kind of fragmented memory and of what may or
21:58
Speaker 1: may not happen. She had try all over her body.
22:01
Speaker 1: This is a daily occurrence. And here's the really tragic
22:05
Speaker 1: part about this is that say, for instance, there they
22:09
Speaker 1: are dosed with a drug like an opiate in order
22:13
Speaker 1: to diminish their ability to you know, kind of operate
22:16
Speaker 1: in the normal space and motor function, all the stuff
22:20
Speaker 1: to defend themselves. Well, after that happens, they develop a
22:24
Speaker 1: dependency many times because they're essentially trying to numb themselves
22:29
Speaker 1: Nancy day in and day out, and they crave this
22:31
Speaker 1: drug because of the physical trauma they're having to endure
22:34
Speaker 1: with these strangers day after day after day after day
22:37
Speaker 1: where their bodies are being sold. And it is a horrible,
22:41
Speaker 1: horrible cycle. It is a horrible cycle. To Ashley Kelly,
22:46
Speaker 1: licensed clinical social worker, her expertise child abuse and sex trafficking.
22:51
Speaker 1: The little girls are then conditioned, they get Stockholm syndrome,
22:55
Speaker 1: and they start bonding with the pimp that's beating and
22:59
Speaker 1: raping them, right, And I wanted to bring up also,
23:02
Speaker 1: I know that in this case maybe there was a
23:04
Speaker 1: kidnapping that happened, but a lot of times the recruitment
23:08
Speaker 1: in looks a lot like someone that gave them attention
23:11
Speaker 1: and was their boyfriend. Or said that they were their boyfriend.
23:15
Speaker 1: So the level of manipulation and trauma that's wrapped up
23:20
Speaker 1: into that is so ingrained in them at such an
23:25
Speaker 1: impressionable age that even to find these traffickers later is
23:30
Speaker 1: difficult to These girls love them in a way or
23:34
Speaker 1: think that they do, and that adds another layer to
23:38
Speaker 1: this issue. Nobody at age Penny Douglas for Lawyer an Advocate.
23:44
Speaker 1: No child at age thirteen, that's about a year and
23:48
Speaker 1: a month older than the twins can be in love
23:52
Speaker 1: with a pimp that has them addicted to heroin and
23:55
Speaker 1: is baiting and raping them and selling them to other
23:59
Speaker 1: men for sex. Does Nancy. They're in love with the
24:02
Speaker 1: feeling they're getting from the heroine. Remember, he's controlling the drug.
24:07
Speaker 1: He's giving them enough so that they do what he
24:12
Speaker 1: wants them to do, exactly what he wants them to do.
24:15
Speaker 1: You know, I had a case where the grandmother knew
24:18
Speaker 1: me from a different case. She called me. Her granddaughter
24:23
Speaker 1: was also in Atlanta in middle school. She was around
24:26
Speaker 1: twelve years old. She had bought her a computer to
24:29
Speaker 1: help her with school. Some guy was pursuing her online.
24:34
Speaker 1: The guy convinces the girl to meet him at the mall.
24:39
Speaker 1: They disappear. The next time the mother hears from them,
24:45
Speaker 1: her granddaughter is in jail and the man is in
24:48
Speaker 1: jail because he was committing crimes all the way up
24:51
Speaker 1: to Virginia. Now she's not only had sex with this
24:55
Speaker 1: thirty year old man, but now she's in jail and
24:58
Speaker 1: they want to charge her as in the adult for
25:01
Speaker 1: all the an accessory to all the crimes these commit
25:04
Speaker 1: You know, Penny, when I hear cases like that, it
25:07
Speaker 1: seems like there are not any answers to Adam Cheney,
25:11
Speaker 1: co founder of Elijah Rising, what are your answers? What
25:14
Speaker 1: are your theories on solutions? I think the solutions are
25:18
Speaker 1: at least for us. We are a faith based organization,
25:20
Speaker 1: so we're committed to praying about it. But secondly, because
25:23
Speaker 1: we understand the prayers not enough, we raise awareness. We
25:28
Speaker 1: believe that we have got to drive this issue into
25:31
Speaker 1: the consciousness of every single person in our city, in
25:34
Speaker 1: our state, and if we have the opportunity and the
25:36
Speaker 1: rest of the nation and the world, people have to
25:40
Speaker 1: realize that this is taking place. And your show is
25:43
Speaker 1: helping with that with raising awareness. But then we've got
25:45
Speaker 1: to do direct intervention. Somebody's got to get out there.
25:48
Speaker 1: We need to help law enforcement. They're understaffed, you know,
25:51
Speaker 1: and underfunded, and so we need people who are going
25:54
Speaker 1: to go out there and see Letty standing on a
25:57
Speaker 1: corner or wherever she may have been and saying, hey,
26:00
Speaker 1: you okay, you look like you're thirteen years old, you're
26:02
Speaker 1: not in school. What's going on right now? Can I
26:05
Speaker 1: help you? And not just with the children, but with
26:08
Speaker 1: the you know, the thousands and tens of thousands of
26:10
Speaker 1: adults that are out there. We need people who are
26:13
Speaker 1: going to go in and say, hey, we have a
26:15
Speaker 1: way for you to exit this life if it's time,
26:18
Speaker 1: if you're ready to leave. And so that's what we
26:20
Speaker 1: do here in Houston. And we have a twenty four
26:23
Speaker 1: to seven hotline that is here just for Houston. It's
26:27
Speaker 1: a local Houston number run by local Houston volunteers and
26:30
Speaker 1: a ministry here that we partner with. And if you
26:32
Speaker 1: call that number, as a survivor calls that number at
26:35
Speaker 1: any point, they will send a team, an exit team,
26:38
Speaker 1: to help that survivor exit with normally within about about
26:42
Speaker 1: a two hour window. And then we've got to just
26:45
Speaker 1: we've got to increase the long term care. What is
26:47
Speaker 1: your number? The number is seven one three, three two
26:51
Speaker 1: two eight zero zero zero. We are discussing potential solutions,
26:57
Speaker 1: but let's bring it home to reality. Listen to this.
27:00
Speaker 1: He was not going to stop, and he was set
27:04
Speaker 1: on sharing my picture with whoever he could to ruin
27:09
Speaker 1: my reputation. I felt like a slave. I had to
27:12
Speaker 1: I had to make sure I had replied to every message.
27:14
Speaker 1: I had to give him like an explanation. I feel like,
27:18
Speaker 1: why wasn't I replying, and then my lies of everything
27:23
Speaker 1: and what I was doing and whatnot, and then having
27:27
Speaker 1: him no, I'm sorry, I have school in the morning.
27:29
Speaker 1: I have to do this. I'm at school till this time.
27:31
Speaker 1: And then I'd have my nights where I just felt
27:34
Speaker 1: I really did. I just felt depressed. I remember just
27:36
Speaker 1: laying in bed with silence and just thinking, and I
27:40
Speaker 1: felt like God was so disappointed in me, and I
27:43
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do. But I still I wouldn't
27:45
Speaker 1: get home till late at night, and then I'd have
27:48
Speaker 1: to send him all these pictures, and as I'm doing this,
27:50
Speaker 1: he would be like, no, this isn't right, this one's blurry,
27:53
Speaker 1: or you didn't do this right. You weren't. You weren't
27:56
Speaker 1: doing it right. You got to do it again. So
27:58
Speaker 1: and that's where being a slaved him comes in, because
28:01
Speaker 1: to make sure I complied, and I sent him all
28:03
Speaker 1: this because one maybe tomorrow I'll get a break. I'll
28:06
Speaker 1: get a day off tomorrow if I just do all
28:08
Speaker 1: these right, which I never wanted to send them or
28:12
Speaker 1: like give him what he wanted, but I wanted my freedom.
28:16
Speaker 1: I guess you're hearing a child sex trafficking victim, Ashley
28:20
Speaker 1: speaking out. Earlier, you heard from Adam Cheney, co founder
28:24
Speaker 1: of Elijah Rising to help child trafficking victims, say that
28:29
Speaker 1: this spans all income categories, all societal categories, all races,
28:36
Speaker 1: and he's right. Listen to our friends at w WLTV.
28:39
Speaker 1: New Orleans prosecutors say fifty nine year old Pascal Caligharo,
28:42
Speaker 1: the Third trafficked of fourteen year old girl. Federal investigators
28:46
Speaker 1: say in May of last year, Caligharo the Third engaged
28:48
Speaker 1: in prostitution dates with the victim and drove her to
28:51
Speaker 1: dates with others. They say he also negotiated prices and
28:55
Speaker 1: arranged times and locations of prostitution dates with other men. Caligharo,
29:00
Speaker 1: the third is the son of retired Chief Justice of
29:02
Speaker 1: Louisiana Supreme Court, Pascal Caligharo Junior, who is the longest
29:06
Speaker 1: serving justice in state history. Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
29:26
Speaker 1: Federal prosecutors say Calighero used his own home for prostitution
29:31
Speaker 1: dates he set up between the child and an adult male.
29:34
Speaker 1: Neighbors say they noticed multiple men and at least one
29:37
Speaker 1: young girl going in and out of the house in
29:39
Speaker 1: the past. Sherry Lockridge is a human trafficking case manager
29:43
Speaker 1: for Covenant House. She says this story represents a common
29:47
Speaker 1: arc We've seen that before, where John's have become then
29:51
Speaker 1: the trafficker, where they've used that to introduce themselves to
29:54
Speaker 1: the girls as a customer and then exploit them further.
29:59
Speaker 1: She also says stories like this are more common then
30:02
Speaker 1: people realize. You were hearing our friends at WWLTV in
30:06
Speaker 1: New Orleans. That was Lauren Bale and Rob Kreiger, and
30:10
Speaker 1: what Adam Cheney was saying it is absolutely correct. Ashley Kelly,
30:15
Speaker 1: her expertise child abuse and sex trafficking. This was the
30:18
Speaker 1: sun of the longest sitting judge in that area, and
30:24
Speaker 1: he was actually Supreme Court justice in Louisiana and his
30:28
Speaker 1: son is driving. His adult son is driving this little
30:32
Speaker 1: girl from hotel to hotel to have sex with grown men.
30:37
Speaker 1: That doesn't surprise me. We have a lot of high
30:40
Speaker 1: profile people that are involved in this, from politicians to
30:43
Speaker 1: police chiefs, to firefighters to all kinds of high profile
30:48
Speaker 1: people that are involved in trafficking and buying. Unfortunately, as
30:52
Speaker 1: well as victimizing. We have projects here in Phoenix that
30:58
Speaker 1: we use as far as housing for moms who are
31:01
Speaker 1: escaping with their kids. They give comprehensive care and therapy.
31:08
Speaker 1: There's just not enough, but it dispands across anything. A
31:13
Speaker 1: Houston girl, just fifteen years old, was kidnapped, drugged, and
31:19
Speaker 1: right near her middle school when she was just thirteen.
31:23
Speaker 1: Photos of her show her wearing her hair in pigtails.
31:26
Speaker 1: An honor student in middle school who loved her pet
31:30
Speaker 1: dogs has now committed suicide after being rescued from a
31:35
Speaker 1: sex trafficking ring. Take a listen to our friends at
31:39
Speaker 1: Box twenty six, Houston. This is Maria Salazar. I have
31:42
Speaker 1: requested an interview with my investigators so we can reopen
31:45
Speaker 1: the case. Commander Jim Dill, who's over ahpd's Vice Division,
31:49
Speaker 1: says this also speaks the need to do more in schools,
31:52
Speaker 1: seeing she was a victim and somehow her cries fell
31:55
Speaker 1: through the cracks, and I think that's why it's so
31:57
Speaker 1: imperative that we get the schools involved, and Cynthia wants
32:00
Speaker 1: more to be done around suicide prevention in school. Also,
32:04
Speaker 1: she's calling on her city council district to do more
32:06
Speaker 1: about abandoned homes where she says let the was trafficked, mattresses,
32:11
Speaker 1: little girls, bras chemicals. They use the drugs to mix
32:15
Speaker 1: with I want the community to come together, Houston, to
32:19
Speaker 1: come together and ask her these houses to be removed,
32:23
Speaker 1: torn down. You were hearing Houston Commander Jim Deal saying
32:27
Speaker 1: he wants to reopen the trafficking case against Letty Taking
32:31
Speaker 1: at age thirteen's pimp who beat, raped, and drugged her
32:35
Speaker 1: sold her into sex trafficking. That is a horrible, horrible
32:41
Speaker 1: visual a mental image to Penny Douglas fur these abandoned
32:45
Speaker 1: homes with mattresses on the floor, drugs, paraphernalia and little
32:51
Speaker 1: girls underwear and bras strone. Nancy, It's outrageous, but still
32:57
Speaker 1: the bigger point here is we need to do something
33:01
Speaker 1: once we get them out. That's why this child committed suicide.
33:05
Speaker 1: There was no treatment for her once she got out.
33:09
Speaker 1: And our government spends money on every ridiculous thing. We
33:14
Speaker 1: just spent over half a million dollars on his study
33:17
Speaker 1: to determine whytch chimpanzees throw their fee see, but there's
33:21
Speaker 1: nothing for children who've been sex trafficked and they need treatment.
33:26
Speaker 1: Now I have a problem with that. I have a
33:28
Speaker 1: problem with it too. And to you Leavipage crime online
33:32
Speaker 1: dot com investigateive reporter, what about the family's efforts to
33:37
Speaker 1: attack the problem of these abandoned homes where the children
33:41
Speaker 1: are being sex trafficked. I mean, it's right under the
33:44
Speaker 1: noses of authorities in Houston. Or what's wrong? I know, Nancy,
33:47
Speaker 1: and they say the families say that the man that
33:50
Speaker 1: trafficked a lady only served a couple of days in
33:53
Speaker 1: John then was released. We need to know exactly why
33:57
Speaker 1: was he released and allowed back out onto the streets,
34:00
Speaker 1: and why do we not know his name and have
34:02
Speaker 1: his picture out there? Because I'm sure that this is
34:05
Speaker 1: not the only young woman that he has preyed upon.
34:09
Speaker 1: And Nancy, this is just so disturbing because this happened
34:12
Speaker 1: at her middle school. And I have cousins in middle school,
34:14
Speaker 1: and you don't think of, you know, sending them off
34:16
Speaker 1: to middle school and something like this happens to them.
34:19
Speaker 1: It's sickening. It's it's what nightmares are made out of
34:22
Speaker 1: children across our country being recruited, transported, harbored, used for
34:27
Speaker 1: production of child pornography, which is traded over and over
34:32
Speaker 1: and over on the dark web. Then the child is
34:35
Speaker 1: put into child trafficking. These boys and girls are traded
34:41
Speaker 1: like their pawns for sex trafficking. In the last hours,
34:46
Speaker 1: the biggest child pornography ring on the dark web has
34:51
Speaker 1: just been busted. It spans multiple countries, South Korea, Great Britain,
34:57
Speaker 1: of course the US. The website was called Welcome to Video,
35:03
Speaker 1: and we know that multiple people, potentially three hundred and
35:07
Speaker 1: thirty seven users in twelve different countries, have been arrested now.
35:12
Speaker 1: According to court filings, Welcome to Video's website was seized
35:17
Speaker 1: back in twenty eighteen, and then the authorities discovered a
35:22
Speaker 1: quarter of a million unique which means separate video files
35:28
Speaker 1: linked to keywords like pedophile. As a result of this,
35:33
Speaker 1: twenty three children have been rescued across the US, and
35:38
Speaker 1: this is according to the Justice Department. You wonder what's
35:42
Speaker 1: happening to these children that are taken there go missing.
35:46
Speaker 1: You see a missing child flyer. You never hear what
35:50
Speaker 1: happened to this one? What happened to that one? This
35:53
Speaker 1: it's what's happening to them. Please join our fight. Go
35:57
Speaker 1: to crime online dot com for the latest and find
36:01
Speaker 1: out what you can do to help stop child trafficking.
36:05
Speaker 1: For starters, you can call eight eight eight three seven
36:08
Speaker 1: five seven eight eight eight eight eight eight three seven
36:12
Speaker 1: five seven eight eight eight. It is an anti trafficking hotline.
36:18
Speaker 1: Don't let Letty's suicide be the end of this story.
36:24
Speaker 1: Nancy Gray's crime story signing off goodbye friend,