North Texas teen trafficking victim found safe after going missing from Utah treatment facility

North Texas teen trafficking victim found safe after going missing from Utah treatment facility



In April, the lady was reported missing after she was seen leaving a Dallas Mavericks sport with a person her mom mentioned she did not know.

DALLAS — Editor’s word: This story has been up to date after {the teenager} was found safe in Utah.

Protecting her daughter’s identification has been essential to Brooke Morris for the previous 4 months. Her story has been plastered throughout headlines, however she’s made positive her photograph and identify weren’t used. 

That modified after the teen was reported missing.

“She’s lost her way,” Morris mentioned. “I want to help her find her way. I want to help her. We just don’t know where she’s at.”

Morris’s daughter was reported missing after she ran away from a treatment facility in Layton, Utah, simply north of Salt Lake City. 

Thankfully, {the teenager} was finally found safe in Utah on Tuesday night.

Morris mentioned she had been on the heart for about two weeks and that she spoke to her daughter final Tuesday, two days earlier than she ran away.

“The conversation we had with her was with her therapist, and he had seen some good work,” Morris mentioned. 

Morris mentioned her daughter had informed her there was “drama” on the facility, however she chalked it as much as the truth that there are about 40 different ladies on the heart. She mentioned the teen sounded usually constructive and cheerful in regards to the heart, her therapist and the middle. 

“From what we understand, there was an episode or an event,” Morris said. “It triggered her. Her flight-or-fight kicked in. She’s not a flyer, not a fighter.”

Morris mentioned the facility and native legislation enforcement had been fast to reply and had been actively in search of her. She and her husband are at present in Utah for the investigation. 

“I don’t suppose she was in her proper thoughts” Morris said. “I feel she was triggered, and that’s nobody else’s fault. She’s on her personal therapeutic journey.”

In April, the lady was reported missing after she was seen leaving a Dallas Mavericks sport with a person her mom mentioned she did not know.

RELATED: North Texas teen who went missing from Mavs sport was marketed and offered for intercourse in Oklahoma City. Her household says many individuals might’ve stopped it.

“She met up with a man and left,” Morris said. “What we’ve gathered from her, was that it was sort of a ‘let’s hang around till the video games over’ sort of state of affairs and he or she left. We now know she was within the space for about an hour and a half.”

Almost two weeks later Oklahoma City police found the lady in a lodge room after a non-profit group that fights human trafficking used its database to search out on-line intercourse adverts that includes photographs of her and reported them to police. 

“She was handed from individual to individual to particular person in Dallas after which moved to Oklahoma City,” Morris said. “It gave the impression to be a really organized factor. A really intentional factor.”

Morris mentioned, in keeping with her daughter’s story and stories, she believes the teen was sexually assaulted earlier than being moved from Dallas. She mentioned somebody tried to site visitors her in Dallas however moved her to Oklahoma as a result of she was being “uncooperative.”

“There’s still many details she doesn’t know,” Morris said. “Unfortunately, she was drugged in Oklahoma and possibly Dallas so her memory is very scattered as it is. Over time, she has been remembering more and more and more, but there are still large blocks of time missing. She described it to me, at one point,  as like a dream. Like, if you have a dream and you try to tell somebody about that dream. You know it in your head but you can’t really tell someone about it.”

Multiple folks had been arrested in Oklahoma City in connection to the trafficking ring the teen fell victim to. Morris mentioned her daughter has been in restoration for months. 

She graduated from a three-month program in Colorado earlier than transferring to Utah. Morris mentioned they’d seen numerous progress. 

“Enormous strides in just healing herself and healing relationships with my husband and I and our son,” Morris mentioned. “It was so great, and that’s why this is no mind blowing because she had made all of those steps in the right direction.”

Morrs’s legal professional, Zeke Fortenberry, is an advocate and volunteer for human trafficking victims and organizations. In an announcement, he mentioned: “Unfortunately, it is a widespread incidence for younger victims who’ve suffered a critical traumatic occasion equivalent to intercourse trafficking. The psychological anguish she endured whereas being trafficked is one thing she must work via for the remainder of her life.” 

Despite the progress she’d been making in her therapeutic, Morris mentioned the trauma, guilt and disgrace her daughter faces is nice. 

“This is a psychological trauma response,” Morris mentioned. “This is a response to horrible issues that occurred to her that you simply and I can solely think about.”



story by The Texas Tribune Source link