I was born and raised in a small town, in Southern Oregon.
And I was a good kid in school.
I grew up in a normal middle-class family.
I got great grades.
I was really active in sports and I even graduated a year early.
I was accepted into Oregon State University and I had my dorm room already assigned, and
I was really excited to move up to Corvallis.
But that Summer I got pregnant by my boyfriend, and I had to make a real tough decision about
whether I was going to keep my baby and unenroll from the university or get an abortion and
keep it all a secret.
It was a really tough summer for me.
After I had the baby, I had some friends that had gone up to U of O to go to college.
They had an extra room in one of their apartments.
It was at that time I met a boy or guy who pretended to take interest in me.
I really thought he liked me and we really got along really well.
He was really funny and charming.
He had a nice car.
And he always picked up the tab.
He had nice clothes.
He told me he was a record producer.
That he had a band up in Portland.
That is why he frequently went out of town.
There is a saying that says when you take a child by the hand you take the mother by
the heart.
And I really think that is what happened for me.
Because I had this new little girl and this man who showed desperate attention towards
her like he wanted to really help make this family that I really wanted for my daughter.
And He invited me to move in with him within about 6 months of dating.
I was really excited.
I brought him down to Southern Oregon to meet my family, and everything seemed fine until
we arrived in Las Vegas.
He said we were moving there because that was the entertainment capital of the World
and being a record producer and having a band that's was where they would get the most gigs,
most jobs.
That's where his job was leading him.
So I desperately wanted to go with him.
To be with him to start this family he promised me.
He pulled up to an escort service, and he said "This is how it works in Vegas.
I have spent a lot of money to get you here.
I put first and last on an apartment.
I filled your fridge up with food.
You're going to have to earn that money back.".
I felt... I felt trapped.
I felt like how am I going to get out of this.
You didn't know if I were going to live or die.
You didn't know what he was going to do.
Or what he was capable of.
So it was really scary.
I can remember running through the casino, thinking "these people don't even have a clue
of what is going on" just cha ching cha ching Las Vegas! Yay!
They are doing all this stuff and I am running for my life .. I am running.
I am running from a man that has forced me into doing things I didn't want to do.
When you have a trafficker that's waiting at home with your child and says if you don't
bring home $1500 you're going to find your daughter out on the corner.
I think I was probably more frightened to go home than I was to be in the room.
Because if you got robbed, it was your fault for being stupid, if you got raped it was
your fault for not watching your back, anything that happened to you was typically your fault,
and you incurred more punishment for allowing those things to happen to you.
So it made you always walk in fear of your trafficker.