Sara Disappears, Reappears and Re-Disappears
We had been searching for a missing juvenile for about a year. Her name was Sara, and she was a beautiful, loved adoptive child of her grandparents.
Note from Dottie: These are stories from my memories of rescuing human trafficking victims for the past 20 years. I have changed the details, however the lessons learned, and tactics of the traffickers are real. There were so many cases that I often combine them together to tell a real story and in order to protect the anonymity of all the victims and the teammates who helped us.
In September of 2017, I found myself and Phillip, (a participant from our Investigator School, Texas Institute of Investigation) in the position of surveilling a funeral. But it was not just any funeral as you will soon discover.
We had been searching for a missing juvenile for about a year. Her name was Sara, and she was a beautiful, loved adoptive child of her grandparents. The grandmother and grandfather stepped in to be responsible for her and Sara’s sister Ana, when the child’s biological mother was arrested for execution of a major and violent felony. The victim of the felony was the mother’s own sweet 3-year-old child -- Sara.
For 13 years Sara’s grandparents raised her as their own child. Sara was innocent, protected and loved. They never even called her granddaughter only daughter. She referred to them as mom and dad. They all lived in a small but comfortable home, kept neat. It had a garden, roses, and a friendly down-home feeling.
Sara played basketball and volleyball at her high school. As a new first-year student she was thriving in life. Sara became very fond of her coach, a woman about 10 years older than Sara. Unbeknownst to her grandparents, the coach, for an undisclosed reason, gave Sara her very own smart phone. Again, this was a secret kept from Sara’s grandparents.
One night Sara’s grandmother, Maria (the grandmother), saw Sara in her room texting on the device. Sara was shocked at being found out, dropped the phone, and ran out the door and disappeared into the night.
Sara was missing and her grandparents filed a police report. Several days passed and still there was no sign of her. The school wanted to withdraw Sara from the school roster. Maria was adamant and said no way. The school protested but her guardian mother stood her ground and declared “You will help me find her!”
A nonprofit specializing in helping grandparents who are raising their grandchildren contacted our organization. This is known as “kinship care.” It involves grandparents taking on the parenting role when the biological parents are not available to raise their children. The nonprofit reached out to us for help.
I then proceeded to meet with Sara’s grandparents after getting the information on what had taken place, we moved on to meet with school officials and the district police department. The school principal refused to meet with us, so we marched on the superintendent’s office. After much discussion, he finally relented and put us in touch with the school district’s Chief of Police. In that meeting, he made it abundantly clear that he had no time for a runaway teen. He was really getting under my nerves, and I not so politely asked him “What do you have time for?”
I was furious! Sara was missing and the school district had an employee that was potentially responsible for her disappearance. Finally, after much cajoling and putting pressure on him, the Chief agreed to meet with Maria and myself. I reiterated that we had discovered that the coach had provided Sara with the cell phone. We discovered this because Ana (Sara’s sister) was upset that the coach had given Sara a phone and not her. (Nothing like sibling rivalry to give away clues!) The Chief called the befriended coach and she admitted to giving Sara the phone but nothing else. In order to break into the phone, I needed the coach’s permission to do so. I got her to immediately write an email stating that I had her okay. I wanted to have solid grounds from a legal perspective should we have discovered anything promiscuous on the phone. Or any information that would demonstrate that Sara was being groomed. Now we could legally override the passcode and get into the phone.
Before getting off the phone with the coach, I asked her why she gave Sara the phone and the Chief rapidly hung up the phone. I asked him why and he would not respond. The lack of cooperation from all levels of the education system was astounding. A child’s life was at risk and all they wanted to do was keep it quiet!
We had the phone opened by a forensic examiner. There were long strings of grooming and luring texts that had gone on for months without Sara’s grandparents knowing. We were able to recover several texts, many disappeared due to the application that was being employed automatically deleting texts. This technology was in its infancy and not as thorough as some of today’s apps and we were able to secure further information. Also, in her haste to depart, Sara left the application open, and we were fortunate to access more details.
Within the strings of texts, Sara stated she had never kissed anyone, and talked about her fears, dreams, and hopes. She stated she loved her grandparents who she referred to as mom and dad. Sara wrote about going to church and plans for her upcoming 15th birthday. The other party started the grooming process by describing parties, lesbian sex acts and more. Then you see a shift in Sara’s communication as she starts considering and struggling with the content of the texts and the description of vicarious sexual acts. Next, the cryptic messages that allude to meeting and initiating first sexual experiences. We were never able to name the identity of the other participant, but I feel sure it was the coach. Thankfully, we were able to retrieve what we had. The remainder of the messages had been thoroughly erased.
I had the grandparents file complaints with the high school principal, and an investigation transpires. Somehow the coach keeps her job. Unexpectedly, Sara magically reappears, without explanation just gratitude that she is safe. She switches high schools within the district to keep her away from the coach.
Our predator (the coach) of innocence, of course, is safe to lure and groom without discovery.
Sara disappears again- this time from school.