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

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

At just 13 years old, a pretty, typical high school student was kidnapped, drugged and forced into sex trafficking. At 15, Letty Serrano commited suicide... after being rescued. With Nancy Grace today to talk about the tragedy: Adam Chaney, Co-Founder of Elijah Rising; Ashley Kelly, Licensed Clinical Social Worker; Joe Scott Morgan, Forensics Expert; Dr. Michelle Dupree, Medical Examiner; and reporter Levi Page. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Today on Crime Stories, we travel to Houston, Texas. Letty was a sex trafficking victim, according to her loved ones. She disappeared two years ago at age 13. They say she was drugged and sold. And even after they found her near the bayou at Moody Park and brought her home, she was not the same. Joining Nancy Grace, Adam Chaney, co-founder of Elijah Rising. Ashley Kelly, licensed clinical social worker. Joe Scott Morgan, forensic expert, professor

of forensics and author of Blood Beneath My Feet. Dr. Michelle Dupree, medical examiner and author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide and Levi Page, investigative reporter for Crime Online. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Letty Serrano was just 15. She celebrated her quinceañera in May. A typical high school student with a loving family. She was a great girl. Good student. Friendly. Loved her puppies. But on Saturday, she ended her own life. A life, it turns out, was not typical. Letty was a sex trafficking victim, according to her loved ones. She disappeared two years ago at age 13.

They say she was drugged and sold. And even after they found her near the bayou at Moody Park and brought her home, she was not the same. We got her back damaged. Her father told us she was his life. He's broken. She loved him. He loved her. He is destroyed, he said.

It is too painful, and he wants justice. They're raising money on Facebook to offset funeral expenses, but more than money, they want to raise awareness. They want people to know how prevalent sex trafficking is in Houston. Haletti is a cautionary tale that the pain of what happened never goes away. I feel like I let her down. I feel like I let her down. I don't know. I just feel I should have. I don't know. You are hearing Letty's godmother, Cynthia Rivera. Our friends at ABC 13 Houston, that was Tom Abrahams talking about this beautiful girl, Letty. At age 13, Lettie was kidnapped, drugged, and raped and put into sex trafficking. She was ultimately rescued, but too late. At just 15 years old, after what she had lived through, Lettie commits suicide. What happened to Lettie? You know, when I hear the phrase sex trafficking, I think of some foreign country, a third world nation where children and

women don't have any rights, but that's not true. This is happening right here in our beloved country. With me, Adam Chaney, co-founder of Elijah Rising. Ashley Kelly, licensed clinical social worker. Her expertise, child abuse and sex trafficking. Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert professor at Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. But right now to CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter Levi Page. Levi, how did this little girl, just 13, that's only about a year and a half older than my Lucy and John David, end up drugged, raped, and sold into sex trafficking in America. Yes, this is in Houston, Texas, Nancy, and she was 13 years old attending Marshall Middle School.

And in 2017, you know, she was a high-achieving student, very, very nice young woman, and she ended up in sex trafficking at school. That's where she met up with this person, and her family found her in an abandoned home after looking for her for days, and they say that she had never been the same since she had been abducted, since she had been drugged in sex traffic. Joining me right now, renowned trial lawyer Penny Douglas-Furr. Penny, you and I have seen it firsthand. And the number one hub for child sex trafficking is the Atlanta Airport, the number one hub in the U.S.

Penny, people think it's not happening here. It's happening here. Nancy, it's happening everywhere. And we have failed this girl as a country because she came out so damaged there's no fun for victims there's no uh national health care so she can go and get care and if she doesn't have any access to any kind of psychological treatment or psychiatric treatment, it gets worse. Over time, it gets worse. You can imagine how this child feels after going through that.

And I'm sure her friends talk about it, and it's horribly embarrassing for her, and she needs treatment. We have to do something to make sure we have something for victims so that they can get the treatment they need. Otherwise, there'll be more suicide. To Adam Chaney, co-founder of Elijah Rising, you can find it at ElijahRising.org. Adam Chaney, weigh in. The guest that just spoke is exactly right. This is happening everywhere.

Sex trafficking has existed in the United States forever. And I, we work here in Houston and it is, it's, it's everywhere. I mean, it's, it's in every neighborhood. It looks like every demographic in terms of age, socioeconomic status, skin tone, all the above. And so unfortunately, Letty's story, though it is making national headlines, is far more common than most people realize. And I mean, it's an epidemic. At Elijah Rising, we say, you know, there's no such thing as a red light district anymore. We've got red light cities. We've got red light, you know, counties. It's happening everywhere. And it's tragic. It's absolutely tragic. And there does need to be more outcry. There does need to be more awareness. And that's what we're doing at Elijah Rising is trying to do that and provide the long-term care that

survivors need, because your previous guest is exactly right. Without long-term trauma-informed care in a resident-based system with professional mental health care and physical health care, survivors do not have an opportunity to become whole again. It's the biggest gap in this issue is providing that long-term trauma-informed care. This little girl, Letitia, known by her family as Letty, had just celebrated her 50th birthday party with a lavish quinceanera party with a ruby red princess ball gown, roses, a dessert bar put on by her family. I'm looking at the pictures of her at the party right now, but then shortly after that, Lettie locked herself in the bathroom and committed suicide as her dad desperately tried to get in

touch with her and reach her. By the time he opened the door, it was too late, and she died in her father's arms. This is a direct result of her being drugged, kidnapped, and raped at age 13 and sold into sex trafficking. To Ashley Kelly, licensed clinical social worker, whose expertise is child abuse and sex trafficking, weigh in, Ashley. Yeah, unfortunately, like the others have said, this is not uncommon. In fact, 13 is the average age of entry for sex trafficking in this country. We're doing a lot of research out here in Phoenix and in Las Vegas in recruiting techniques and different things like that to try to combat and prevent this from happening to kids like Leti, unfortunately. Take a listen to Voice of America's Carolyn Prezzuti. It started when Kate was in the

ninth grade. Her abductor, Luis, who has never been charged in this case, was enrolled at her high school. He was 21 years old. She was 14. The first thing he ever said when he messaged me on Facebook before I was high or anything was you have beautiful eyes. Kate fell in love. At night, Luis would knock on her bedroom window and sneak her out to parties. But one night, she didn't come home. I was with all these old men all I saw was they thought I was pretty they gave me attention I remember blacking out some things are still really blurry to this day I had lots of bruises and lots of internal damage later she learned Louise was a member of MS-13, a vicious Central American gang. Barely a teenager, Kate was being drugged with heroin and PCP and sold for sex to make money for the gang. You are hearing that story. The girl we are talking about was drugged much the same way at age 13. She, Lettie, was a very high achieving student,

an honor student at Marshall Middle School. Middle school! My children are in middle school right now. She was not far away from school when she was kidnapped and drugged and taken by a sex trafficker. Joining me right now, Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert and professor of forensics. How does it happen, Joe Scott? Listen, these children are targeted. They're seen as vulnerable, weak. Maybe, you know, they're not surrounded by someone that watch cares over them very, very carefully. And even in cases where they are surrounded by people, these perpetrators can still get to them because they're easily manipulated.

Remember, reflectively, what the young woman said, you've got beautiful eyes. You know, what young lady would not like to hear that, particularly at that particular age? And going to Lettie's case in particular, Nancy, I think that many people across the country don't realize how prevalent suicide is. I worked for the medical examiner in Atlanta and the coroner in New Orleans. And, you know, suicide actually outpaces homicide almost two, sometimes three to one. And you never know about the dark secrets that people hold. In her case, this speaks volumes. The trauma that she went through, the things that she was forced to do, the things that that burden that she had to

bear all by herself. And of course, she wound up ending her life in that bathroom. At age 13, Lettie was kidnapped, drugged, and forced into sex work by the perpetrator, an older man. I'm looking at pictures of her right now that were posted when she went missing, her family desperate to find her. She actually has pigtails in the picture. She looks like she's about 10. Now she's dead. To Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter,

where you can find this and all other breaking crime and justice news. Levi, how was she kidnapped? She was near school property, Nancy, when she came in contact with this sex trafficker and he drugged her. So that was how he was able to take control of her. And her grandmother had been searching for her and searching for her for days and found her in an abandoned house, drugged. I mean, can you imagine that, Nancy? And she's 13 years old. She's in middle school and was a good student, made great grades, and ended up dying in her father's arms after she locked herself in the bathroom just not long after her 15th birthday. And I'm

looking at pictures of her birthday party. And she, in those two years, she had grown up to be a very beautiful young woman. And that obviously you can't see the pain that she was masking inside through those pictures because she looks so happy there. And then days later, she's dead. It's heartbreaking. It's really heartbreaking. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. He drove me off into an industrial area, and he's cussing at me, and he told me he was going to kill me if I didn't do what he told me to do. But I looked on the dashboard, and there was this picture of this little girl,

and I asked him, you know, is that your daughter? And he said, yeah. And I said, I'm somebody's daughter, too. You know, will you please let me go? I had had a pimp tell me that I wasn't going to make it, trying to get out. You were hearing the voice of Leah Jeanette Albrightburg, a survivor from California's Forgotten Children, talking about child sex trafficking victims. Those few survived. Letty did not. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Back to Adam Cheney, co-founder of Elijah Rising. You can find it at ElijahRising.org. Adam Cheney, how big is this epidemic in our country, the U.S.? Nancy, it's an epidemic. You used the right term. There are millions of individuals that are being

sex trafficked all over the world. In the United States, the research is not exactly perfect, but I can talk about Texas because that's where we focus. We know that there are 79,000 minors that are being trafficked, sex trafficked, in particular, sex trafficking, 79,000,000 trafficking victims in Texas as a whole. But, you know, nearly 80,000 children are being trafficked here in this state. I mean, if it were just one individual, if it were just one child being trafficked in our city, you know, we need to raise an alarm, don't we? But it's at epidemic proportions. Take a listen to our friends at WXYZ-TV. We took a ride along with police. In one case, officers found the 14-year-old staying in a vacant house.

He hadn't eaten a meal in three days. Those are the types of kids that we're dealing with in this, and it's really sad. Once recovered, the next step is to ask a series of questions to find out if they were sex trafficking victims. Who did they stay with? Did somebody pay for, you know, pay for them to stay somewhere? Did they do favors for them? Did they give them drugs? Officials tell us one in six runaways get involved in sex trafficking. By finding them, it not only saves their life, but it could lead police to the traffickers.

In less than a day, law officials recovered more than 100 missing kids from Wayne County. Of those, three sex trafficking cases have opened. If we can do this more often, hopefully we won't have this big of a problem. You're hearing our friend at Detroit's WXYZ-TV. That was Seema Chowdhury. Listen. When law enforcement officials deal with cases involving missing children, there's a lot of layers that have to be peeled back, a lot of questions that are being asked. Where have these kids been? Are they victims of other crimes? Well, answering those questions and finding those kids were the goal today's sweeps.

Police officers are combing through neighborhoods and knocking on doors as they look for children who've gone missing, many of them considered high-risk youth. Not only to recover children that have been reported missing, but the underlying tone in this was to find the hidden victims of sex trafficking. That's the goal of Operation My Safe Kid. Very often we hear to you, Joseph Scott Morgan, of missing children, But I don't think people put two and two together to realize that the missing children are being sex trafficked. No, I don't think they do, Nancy, because it seems so outlandish, so far-fetched that people don't believe that this is actually going on. As I know that you have, I have been out on a number of cases over the course of my career, and I've come face to face with the reality of this, where, and unfortunately, in the cases that

I was involved in, they all ended in death, but very young women and males that wound up either taking their own lives or they were killed out on the streets that were engaged in the sex industry. And this starts out very, very young. And, you know, what's really kind of poignant about this is that when you talk to the survivors out on the street and you're interviewing them, they're traumatized, but yet they're very worldly, you know, and kids, kids, when you're 15 and you're 16 and you're 17, you should not be able to communicate in the manner in which some of these kids communicate because they've had to do this in order to survive. And it's a horrible, horrible cycle that these kids are caught up in. And you sit back and you just,

you know, sometimes you just weep over it because there's no way to kind of pull them out of it many times. You know, I'm taking a look at all of the stories that we are gathering about child sex trafficking victims. Listen to this. In juvenile hall, I had given up on life. I thought I won't live. I won't live past 16. There's no way I'm going to make it. And I was only 13. I won't live. I won't live past 16. There's no way I'm gonna make it and I was only 13 I wasn't even 14 yet, and I couldn't see myself making it to 16. Maybe not even 15 It just wasn't even a thought that I would. By the time when I was trafficked at 12 I should have been dead by 19. I mean that's the statistics a seven-year life expectancy and that's what should have happened to me, but fortunately someone came into my life

and planted this seed and said you have potential and then I started trying to figure out what that meant. This message that we can all do something needs to get out there. We have our unique abilities, talents and we can develop them and we can change the world with them. That's Carissa Phelps, a survivor of child sex trafficking. Listen to Ming. My childhood was filled with just constant trauma. And at the same time, I had to hide it and had to act like it was a normal childhood life. People often assume that when I say that I'm a survivor of sex trafficking that I'm from Southeast Asia. And I fit that stereotype.

So I want people to know that it happens here and that I'm a U.S. citizen and was born here and that I was sold here. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. People often assume that when I say that I'm a survivor of sex trafficking that I'm from Southeast Asia and I fit that stereotype. So I want people to know that it happens here and that I'm a U.S. citizen. I was born here and that I was sold here. You are hearing from California's Forgotten Children, and it is an expose on child sex trafficking in our country. Back to Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. We started off talking about this beautiful girl, Letitia Letty, who commits suicide at age 15 after she was kidnapped, drugged, and raped at just 13 years old near her middle school. It's almost really too much to take in. But then we switched to a sting that went down where 100 child sex

trafficking victims were saved in a different jurisdiction. So in this particular case with Leti Levi, what's happened to her pimp, her kidnapper? Nancy, he's unnamed. And according to family members, they have said that he was checked into jail, arrested, and then released a few days later. And the family has blamed him for Letty's suicide. And they want to see him in court. And they want to see him answer for what he's done. And the Houston Police Department had a commander that gave an interview with the Daily Mail. And he said that he is reopening the case involving

Lettie. So hopefully this will lead to an arrest and the person that took advantage of her and caused her to end her life so early will be brought to justice. We can only hope. To Joe Scott Morgan, of course, drugs play a major role in this. We know what drugs do to adults, but these little girls are being fed or dosed with heroin, major drugs that cause them to pass out. And then when they wake up, they're addicted. Yeah, you're right, Nancy. And let's reflect back to what the one victim stated. She still has this kind of fragmented memory of what may may or may not happen she had trauma all over her body this is a daily occurrence and here's the really tragic part about this is that say for instance there they are dosed with a drug like an uh an opiate in order to diminish their ability to you

know kind of operate in the in normal space and motor function, all the stuff to defend themselves. Well, after that happens, they develop a dependency many times because they're essentially trying to numb themselves, Nancy, day in and day out. And they crave this drug because of the physical trauma they're having to endure with these strangers day after day after day after day where their bodies are being sold. And it is a horrible, horrible cycle. It is a horrible cycle to Ashley Kelly, licensed clinical social worker, her expertise, child abuse and sex trafficking. The little girls are then conditioned. They get Stockholm syndrome and they start bonding with the pimp that's beating and raping them. You're right.

And I wanted to bring up also, I know that in this case, maybe there was a kidnapping that happened, but a lot of times the recruitment in looks a lot like someone that gave them attention and was their boyfriend or said that they were their boyfriend. So the level of manipulation and trauma that's wrapped up into that is so ingrained in them at such an impressionable age that even to find these traffickers later is difficult because these girls love them in a way or think that they do. And that adds another layer to this issue. Nobody at age, Penny Douglas for lawyer and advocate, no child at age 13, that's about a year and a month older than the twins, can be in love with a pimp that has them addicted to heroin and is beating and raping them and selling them to other men for sex.

That is not love, Penny. Nancy, they're in love with the feeling they're getting from the heroin. Remember, he's controlling the drug. He's giving them enough so that they do what he wants them to do, exactly what he wants them to do. You know, I had a case where the grandmother knew me from a different case. She called me. Her granddaughter was also in Atlanta in middle school. She was around 12 years old. She had bought her a computer to help her with school. Some guy was pursuing her online.

The guy convinces the girl to meet him at the mall. They disappear. The next time the mother hears from them, her granddaughter is in jail, and the man is in jail because he was committing crimes all the way up to Virginia. Now she's not only had sex with this 30-year-old man, but now she's in jail, and they want to charge her as an adult for all being accessory to all the crimes he's committed. You know, Penny, when I hear cases like that, it seems like there are not any answers. To Adam Chaney, co-founder of Elijah Rising, what are your answers?

What are your theories on solutions? I think the solutions are, at least for us, we are a faith-based organization, so we're committed to praying about it. But secondly, because we understand that prayer is not enough, we raise awareness. We believe that we have got to drive this issue into the consciousness of every single person in our city, in our state. And if we have the opportunity in the rest of the nation and the world, people have to realize that this is taking place. And your show is helping with that, with raising awareness. But then we've got to do direct intervention. Somebody's got to get out there. We need to help law enforcement corner or wherever she may have been and said, hey, are you okay? You look like you're 13 years old. You're not in school. What's going on right now? Can I help you? And not just with the children, but with the, you know, the thousands, the tens of thousands of adults that are out there. We need people who are going to go in and say, hey,

we have a way for you to exit this life if it's time, if you're ready to leave. And so that's what we do here in Houston. And we have a 24-7 hotline that is here just for Houston. It's a local Houston number run by local Houston volunteers and a ministry here that we partner with. And if you call that number, if a survivor calls that number at any point, they will send a team, an exit team to help that survivor exit with normally within about a two-hour window. And then we've got to increase the long-term care. What is your number? The number is 713-322-8000. We are discussing potential solutions, but let's bring it home to reality. Listen to this.

He was not going to stop, and he was set on sharing my picture with whoever he could to ruin my reputation. I felt like a slave. I had to make sure I replied to every message. I had to give him, like, an explanation. I feel like, why wasn't I replying? And then my lies of everything and what I was doing and whatnot. And then having him know, I'm sorry, I have school in the morning. I have to do this. I'm at school till this time.

And then I'd have my nights where I just felt, I really did. I just felt depressed. I remember just laying in bed with silence and just thinking. And I felt like God was so disappointed in me. I didn't know what to do. But I wouldn't get home until late at night, and then I'd have to send him all these pictures. And as I'm doing this, he would be like,

No, this isn't right. This one's blurry. Or you didn't do this right. You weren't doing it right. You've got to do it again. And that's where being a slave to him comes in because I had to make sure I complied and I sent him all this because one, maybe tomorrow I'll get a break. I'll get a day off tomorrow if I just do all these right, which I never wanted to send them or give him what he wanted, but I wanted my freedom, I guess. You're hearing a child sex trafficking victim, Ashley,

speaking out. Earlier, you heard from Adam Chaney, co-founder of Elijah Rising, to help child trafficking victims say that this spans all income categories, all societal categories, all races. And he's right. Listen to our friends at wwl tv new orleans prosecutors say 59 year old pascal caligaro the third trafficked a 14 year old girl federal investigators say in may of last year caligaro the third engaged in prostitution dates with the victim and drove her to dates with others they say he also negotiated prices and arranged times and locations of prostitution dates with other men cal Caligaro III is the son of retired Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, Pascal Caligaro Jr.,

who is the longest serving justice in state history. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace federal prosecutors say caligaro used his own home for prostitution dates he set up between the child and an adult male neighbors say they noticed multiple men and at least one young girl going in and out of the house in the past. Sherry Lockridge is a human trafficking case manager for Covenant House. She says this story represents a common arc. We've seen that before where johns have become then the trafficker where they've used that to introduce themselves to the girls as a customer and then exploit them further. She also says stories like this are more common than people realize. You were hearing our friends at WWL-TV in New Orleans.

That was Lauren Bale and Rob Krieger. And what Adam Chaney was saying is absolutely correct. Ashley Kelly, her expertise, child abuse and sex trafficking, this was the son of the longest sitting judge in that area. And he was actually Supreme Court justice in Louisiana. And his son is driving, his adult son is driving this little girl from hotel to hotel to have sex with grown men. That doesn't surprise me. We have a lot of high profile people that are involved in this from politicians to police chiefs to firefighters to all kinds of high

profile people that are involved in trafficking and buying, unfortunately, as well as victimizing. We have projects here in Phoenix that we use as far as housing for moms who are escaping with their kids that give comprehensive care and therapy. There's just not enough. But this spans across anything. A Houston girl, just 15 years old, was kidnapped, drugged, and raped near her middle school when she was just 13. Photos of her show her wearing her hair in pigtails. An honor student in middle school who loved her pet dogs has now committed suicide after being rescued from a sex trafficking ring.

Take a listen to our friends at Fox 26 Houston. This is Maria Salazar. I have requested an interview with my investigators so we can reopen the case. Commander Jim Dale, who's over HPD's vice division, says this also speaks to the need to do more in schools. I mean, she was a victim and somehow her cries fell through the cracks and I think that's why it's so imperative that we get the schools involved. And Cynthia wants more to be done around suicide prevention in school. Also, she's calling on her city council district to do more about abandoned homes, where she says Leti was trafficked. Mattresses, little girls' bras, chemicals they use the drugs to mix with. I want the community to come together, Houston to come together,

and ask for these houses to be removed, torn down. You're hearing Houston Commander Jim Dale saying he wants to reopen the trafficking case against Letty, taken at age 13, a pimp who beat, raped, and drugged her, sold her into sex trafficking. That is a horrible, horrible visual, a mental image to Penny Douglas Furr. These abandoned homes with mattresses on the floor, drugs, paraphernalia, and little girls underwear and bras strewn. Nancy, it's outrageous, but still, the bigger point here is we need to do something once we get them out. That's why this child committed suicide. There was no treatment for her once she got out. And our government spends money on every ridiculous thing. We just spent over half a million dollars

on a study to determine why chimpanzees throw their feces. But there's nothing for children who've been sex trafficked and they need treatment. Now, I have a problem with that. I have a problem with it, too. And to you, Levi Page, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter, what about the family's efforts to attack the problem of these abandoned homes where the children are being sex trafficked? I mean, it's right under the noses of authorities in Houston. What's wrong?

I know, Nancy. And they say, the families say that the man that trafficked the lady only served a couple of days in jail and then was released. We need to know exactly why was he released and allowed back out onto the streets, and why do we not know his name and have his picture out there, because I'm sure that this is not the only young woman that he has preyed upon. And, Nancy, this is just so disturbing because this happened at her middle school, and I have cousins in middle school, and you don't think of, you know, sending them off to middle school and something like this happens to them.

It's sickening. It's what nightmares are made out of. Children across our country being recruited, transported, harbored, used for production of child pornography, which is traded over and over and over on the dark web. Then the child is put into child trafficking. These boys and girls are traded like they're pawns for sex trafficking. In the last hours, the biggest child pornography ring on the dark web has just been busted. It spans multiple countries, South Korea, Great Britain, of course, the U.S. The website was called Welcome to Video. And we know that multiple people, potentially 337 users in 12 different countries, have been

arrested. Now, according to court filings, Welcome to Video's website was seized back in 2018. And then the authorities discovered a quarter of a million unique, which means separate, video files linked to keywords like pedophile. As a result of this, 23 children have been rescued across the U.S. and this is according to the Justice Department. You wonder what's happening to these children that are taken, that go missing. You see a missing child flyer. You never hear what happened to this one, what happened to that one. This, it's what's happening to them. Please join our fight. Go to crimeonline.com for the latest and find out what you can do to help stop child trafficking. For starters, you can call 888-375-7888. 888-375-7888. It is an anti-trafficking hotline. Don't let Letty's suicide be the end of this story. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off.

Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.