TYLER, Texas — In a world often silenced by fear, a local victim of human trafficking is speaking out for the first time since enduring years of suffering.
CBS19 sat down with a Jane Doe hoping to speak for countless others in East Texas who have suffered in silence. We decided not to show her face or share her name to protect her identity.
"When I saw the lingerie, that was like my skin -- felt like it was peeling off itself, like my hairs were standing up," she said.
This was the moment a young Jane Doe found out her friend sold her for $100.
"I'm shaking, I'm in shock," she said.
To understand the depth of her journey, it's important to go back to the start.
"I was originally born in Mexico. I got moved here, I think around six months of age," Jane said.
But her move to the United States was anything but the American Dream.
"I didn't have good memories from what I could recollect from that part of my childhood," she said as she recalled witnessing substance and physical abuse in her youth. "My birth mom, she kind of was into drugs and addiction. My stepdad was very violent, fairly abusive to her."
At 7 years old, she moved to Tyler to live with her biological father and her stepmother. She thought it would be amazing, but it was anything but that.
"It started off good at first moving in with them, probably for about a year, and then that's when bad stuff started happening at home with my stepmom," Jane said. "At first, it was like normal butt whoopings with the belt. And then very fast, it progressed into whatever was around."
She remembers those whoopings became more painful as they used a Swiffer, an industrial mop pole or cable cords wrapped around each other. The small welts turned into open wounds.
"I was wearing my favorite T-shirt at the time, and she started beating me with the pole," Jane said. "She just keeps going and going and going to where my head busts open, to where my T-shirt is just completely, like, covered in my blood."
The abuse got worse and worse until her grandmother took her from that home. As Jane explains it, that would be the beginning of a cycle for her -- bouncing from family member to another and back to her dad’s home.
Feeling defeated and alone, she turned to drugs.
"I think I was chasing like a thrill, but I think it was like the beginning of my self-destructive pattern," Jane said, adding that she tried to take her own life. "I took about 500 Benadryl that night. Just straight up put them in shot glasses, and I was listening to music, and I just started taking shot after shot of pills."
It was a cry for help — with no one listening on the other side. Her behavior led to her getting kicked out of her father's home at age 17. Desperate for a job and a place to stay — she moved in with her friend, ignoring big red flags.
"She was bad. She was very mean, and I just ignored it. Because it was like, I don't want to be alone, you know," Jane said. "She kept telling me, ‘I have this friend that I know, and he helps people out with getting a place in a hotel and stuff. They just need you to make phone calls. That's it.’"
Reluctant at first, Jane decided to take the job, trusting her friend wouldn’t put her in harm's way. Soon enough, she’d learn her “friend” just sold her life away.
"She apparently had met my trafficker at the gas station across from Shiloh Pines," Jane said. "He propositioned her, for each girl you bring to me, I'll give you $100."
For just $100, she would live a nightmare for the next seven years.
"It's called the game, right? The pimp, a bottom girl, the original and then there's other girls that are in the thing," Jane explained.
That game became her life.
"I was seeing over 100 men a day. Like 100 or more men would pay every day to do what they wanted to do to me," she said. "Like pastors, police officers, people that work at your donut shops, everyday people, married men, hundreds of men from this town coming in as customers, and you're passing by them, seeing them every day. And nobody knows, but you know, you know."
For 22 hours a day every day, it felt like a never-ending nightmare.
"No amount of drugs that he was giving me could take the feeling and the memories off of me, no matter how many hot showers I took -- nothing," she said.
And there was no escaping the lifestyle she was tricked into as the trafficker threatened to harm the most innocent and vulnerable members of her family.
"He starts saying, 'I've seen your sisters play in the front yard.' He's like, 'your dad has this kind of car in the driveway and that kind of car.' And then I'm like, 'oh my God, he's been to my house.' He's like, 'yeah, I sit there and watch your sisters play in the front yard sometimes,'" Jane said.
With no other choice, she worked to protect her family, eventually being trafficked again out of the Gilmer and Longview area.
"It's a gang of boys, this time, a gang of men. One of them in particular, he was scary. He was mean and very scary," Jane said. "He was very scared of him, because if he wants to kill someone, he really will."
These traffickers weren’t using Backpage like the previous one. They created fake dating profiles of Jane and another girl that said “two for one deal."
"These boys would be hiding in the bathtub, in the shower with their guns or a pipe in their hand or a baseball bat, and beat these men senseless," she said.
She explained the traffickers would take the men's phones and cash and drain their bank accounts. That's until one man decided to report what he saw.
That red flag raised to the Longview Police Department would save Jane's life.
"One of my old time friends from my childhood, he had reported me missing because I haven't texted him back in a while," she said. "So when he reported me missing, that's when an investigation started."
Because of the police report, they were able to locate Jane at a motel.
"I didn't know that was the whole sting operation in place happening," she said, adding she thought that would be her last night on Earth. "That night, I remember looking out the motel room, and talking to God and I was like, ‘this is my last night, God. Like, if something doesn't happen, I'm gonna kill myself because I hate this.’ I hate it. This isn't me. I'm stuck, and if I kill myself, I don't have to deal with it anymore."
And then she looked out her window.
"... I just see a bunch of like, dark SUVs pull up in there. I'm like, 'who are they? They're cops. They're suiting up. They're putting guns in their vests.' I'm like, 'woah, this is crazy. I've never seen this happen before,'" Jane said.
Little did she know that the person being rescued was her -- until she heard a knock on her door.
"This guy walks up to me, and he goes, 'I'm special agent so-and-so, please just listen to me. We've been looking for you. We've been looking for you for a long time. You're OK now, you're safe,'" Jane said.
One police report made all the difference in Jane’s life. After that sting, she began her journey to rehabilitation.
Her story is one of many in East Texas. Sex trafficking is a more than $600 billion business in the state of Texas, according to the Texas Human Trafficking Resource Center.
It's an industry that advocates and prosecutors are working to end.
In part two of this CBS19 special report, a local nonprofit and Smith County District Attorney Jacob Putman will explain how these cases are prosecuted and the challenges survivors face in building trust and stability.
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