Chilling screams led cops to suspected trafficking victim missing for 7 years
A woman believed to be a victim of trafficking was found by police in a motel after her screams led police to find her seven years after she disappeared.
The suspected victim, who disappeared in 2017, called her step-parent and told them she was being held against her will at a motel in Inkster, Michigan. The shocked parent called the police but didn't have an exact location.
Instead, the Michigan State Police tracked the missing woman down to the general area of the Evergreen Motel. Once there, it was the woman's blood-curdling screams that helped narrow down her exact location.
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The woman was found at the Evergreen Motel (WXYZ/YouTube)“They described it as like a crying, kind of screaming type of noise that lured them to that specific area,” Michigan State Police Lieutenant Mike Shaw told local paper WXYZ. Officers broke in, where they found the woman alone.
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The woman, now in her 30s, was unharmed, police did find drugs and a gun. She was rushed to hospital and will undergo counselling to process what she has been through.
She has also been reunited with her overjoyed family. Her identity has not been revealed and so far police are playing their cards close to their chest when it comes to other details.
Specialist officers focusing on human trafficking are involved in the case. Lieutenant Shaw continued: “We’ll kind of look at what’s next, right… interview her if a crime did take place such as human trafficking or is it a domestic violence situation or is it different.
“I don’t want to use the word kidnapping like somebody grabbed her and took her to that place. It may have started out as a relationship that turns into being held against your will and being trafficked.”
A suspect has been identified but so far no one has been taken into custody. Sadly, not all missing persons cases end so happily.
The body of missing 13-year-old Madeline Soto has been found in a wooded area near where she went missing, it has been revealed. Police announced on Friday evening at around 6.25pm local time that her body was found by Osceola County deputies in the wooded area along Hickory Tree Road at approximately 4.30pm local time.
Her heartbroken family was notified of the discovery, which came after Orange County Sheriff John Mina announced earlier in the day that the search had turned into a recovery mission. Further information about the discovery was not immediately available.
Soto went missing on Monday, February 26, after her mother's boyfriend reportedly dropped her off at Peace United Methodist Church on Town Loop Boulevard, just a few blocks away from Hunter's Creek Middle School, which she attended. She was reported missing that afternoon when her mother, Jenn Soto, went to pick her up and discovered that she had never attended class that day. The teen had just turned 13 on February 22, having celebrated the milestone date on Sunday.
Stephan Sterns, 37, Jenn's boyfriend, was arrested on unrelated charges of assault and the possession of child abuse material on his phone and has been deemed the "prime suspect" in Madeline's case, as he was the last person to have seen her alive after dropping her off. CCTV footage from the church showed her hanging out in the parking lot at around 8.30am that morning before she disappeared and was not seen or heard from again until her body was discovered.
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