December 29, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode of Hunting 4 Answers: Myisha Growe was just a college student trying to start over when a man posing as a friend on campus groomed her into a life she never asked for. What began as trust turned into months of human trafficking across multiple states. Through Myisha’s own words, we trace how childhood trauma shaped her vulnerabilities, how trafficking hides in plain sight, and how one unexpected stranger asking a simple question changed everything. Now an author, advocate, and mother, Myisha shares her journey of survival, escape, and healing, and the ongoing search for the man who helped save her life. Her book, “Stuck in Traffic,” is available through her website, https://growetogether.com
If you or someone you know may be experiencing human trafficking, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888, text “HELP” to 233733, or visit HumanTraffickingHotline.org for confidential support and resources.
This is the story of Myisha Growe.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hunting for Answers is a production of the Black Effect
Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. This episode contains discussions of childhood,
sexual abuse, human trafficking, suicide, and self harm. Listener discretion
is advised. Welcome to Hunting for Answers, a true crime podcast.
(00:24):
I'm your host Hunter, and today we're diving into one
woman's story about how she was human trafficked in one
of the least expected places off her college campus. She
was a young student just trying to start over, never
imagining the dangers hiding in playing sight. A man posing
(00:48):
as a friend on campus groomed her into a life
she never asked for, being trafficked across multiple states for
months until an unlikely stranger asked her a simple question,
a question that ended up changing her life. This is
(01:09):
the story of Maysha grow. Maysha's story starts in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Maysha grew up on the West Bank of New Orleans, Harvey, Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
My name is Mayesha. My author name is Mimi Crown.
I'm born and raised in New Orleans, been here all
my life, and I grew up on a smaller side
of New Orleans, which is known as the West Bank
in Harvey, Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
She describes herself as a quiet, shy kid.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I was always sheltered from a lot. I didn't really
get to do a lot. Is like a teenager, you know.
I didn't really have like a social life, I guess,
I would say, but I was always a very quiet,
shy child. I had a really, I would say, a
(02:15):
good childhood, but that was also some trauma sprinkled in that.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Trauma started at home.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I did grow up in a two parent household. My
mom and my dad. They were married, but he was
verbally and physically abusive to her and my sister and I.
We had to witness that on multiple occasions. And I
would say maybe from as little as four or five
years old.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
As a little girl, she wanted to protect her mom,
but she felt completely helpless.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The feeling of helplessness that came over my sister and I,
it haunted me for a really long time because I
always felt like I didn't do enough.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Eventually her father went to jail. It was just her mom,
her sister, and her. There were good moments, big family gatherings,
Sundays on the lake front. Nineties baby memories but even
in those good moments, there were crocks forming, and someone
(03:25):
close to the family would make those crocks much deeper.
In middle school, around age eleven, Maysha was at a
family sleepover. The adults were in the kitchen, the kids
were in the back rooms. A family friend came over,
a man everyone knew, everyone trusted, everyone loved.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
This family friend was known to all of us. I mean,
we loved him. We you know, we played with him.
We thought that he was just like this wonder full
guy because he treated all the kids really nice.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
That night, she was lying on the edge of the
bed with two younger cousins behind her when he walked
into the room.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
He came into the room, and he came up to
me and he began to caress his hands up my legs,
and so I had on shorts, and it woke me
up because you know, I didn't know what was going on,
and so I woke up. And as soon as I
(04:31):
woke up and saw his face, he immediately was like
you know, and you know, I was like, wait, what
just you know, and I knew it was wrong, and
I was I was scared. So as he's caressing my
legs and his hands are moving closer up to my space.
(04:54):
You know, I was tapping my little cousin. I was like,
wake up, you know, wake up, and she refused, like
she just would not wake up. And he was like, no,
don't do that, don't do that. And I was like stop,
like I told him to stop, and he just kept
trying to go further, and I finally hit my little
cousin hard enough that she started to move a little bit.
(05:21):
You know, she didn't completely wake up, but she did
start to move a little bit, you know, talking out
of her sleep a little bit. She's trying to come
to and it startled him, and at this point his
hands were on my vagina, and she finally kind of
woke up, and he ran out of the room. So
(05:43):
when he ran out of the room, I ran after him,
like I ran behind him to lock the door, but
the door that door didn't lock. And so once my
little cousins woke up, I told him what happened. And
the one that lived there, because she was all also
in my room, she said, let's go to the room
(06:05):
next door, because that room has a lot on it
and it works.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
She locked herself and her cousins in the next room,
listening to the doorknob turn silently.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
You heard and you saw just the doorknob turning, and
my cousins and I were just huddled up together. They
were hugging me. And these are two younger girls, you know,
and so they're hugging on me. They're trying to comfort me.
And I'm just afraid. And he was not able to
(06:37):
get back into that door, thank god, but I was.
I didn't sleep that.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Night the next morning, still traumatized from the night before,
a sad realization began to settle into young Maysha's mind.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
The next morning, I woke up and I was so
scared to even open the door, even though it's daytime,
and I hear adults in the front. I'm just afraid.
And when we finally came out of the room, he
was there. He was still in the house and he
(07:15):
said good morning. He as if nothing happened. And that
is when I realized I wouldn't win that battle if
I said something that That puts something in my head
to say, Okay, if you say something, if you tell
(07:38):
someone that this happened, they're not going to believe you
because of the nature of how close they are and
it hurt me. It hurt me for a really long time.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
For a year and a half, she carried that secret alone.
When she finally told her mom, her mom broke down crying,
asking why she hadn't said anything sooner. But when she
told her dad's side of the family, the response was
very different.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I didn't tell my dad initially, but I told individuals
of the family, and the first thing they said Hunter
was he didn't mean it. Forgive them, yeah, yeah, were
people of God and he made a mistake. And that
(08:38):
just it sent me into an even deeper depression, because
how dare you like what?
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Childhood trauma, sexual abuse, minimization, and the pressure to forgive
someone who had wronged her, all of it lay the
groundwork for what was to come next. Next after the abuse,
her behavior started to change.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I began to act out in other ways, so my
behavior began to decline in school, at home, I became
I was rebelling at such a young age, and I
became promiscuous at a very young age, and my behavior
(09:30):
became really bad. I began to run away at twelve
and thirteen years old.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
She slipped into depression and didn't have the words for it.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I was sad. Every day. I was crying. I became
suicidal at twelve years old. I took approximately fourteen AD bills.
I really thought that that would in my life, and
I was okay with that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Sadly members getting dizzy and then nothing.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So that was my first sign of saying, hmmm, maybe
they like I have a bigger purpose. But I still didn't.
It still didn't register.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
In high school, things got worse. After being intimate with
one boy, he turned a private moment into public humiliation.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
The next day, he went back to school and he
spread a rumor and told the school that I did
it with the whole entire football team. And believe it
or not, that rumor spread like wildfire, and people still
(10:49):
believed that about me till today.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
She stopped going to school. She started running to any
place that felt like escape. Friendshig houses, strangers houses.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I kind of became, you know, like this person who
just wanted to hide, right, you know, I became I
was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I was you know, labeled
as a nasty girl. You know, I just had so
many labels on me at this point, and it was
(11:26):
I just was so desperate.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
She overshared with people who didn't deserve her story, and
some of them saw her as someone they could manipulate.
Looking back, she can see it clearly.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So my biggest vulnerability was being a runaway uh and
also being at that time promiscuous, and not knowing how
to deal with either of those things.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
When she left for college, may Issha was trying to
reinvent herself to become the person she always wanted to be,
but those unhealed wounds also went with her. College was
supposed to be a reset.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I was constantly taken advantage of. And so when I
finally went to college, I was just this laid back
girl kid that's trying to revent my life, you know,
like reclaim the person that I wanted to become, and
(12:42):
trying to navigate to figure out how to do that.
You know, Yet I was constantly partying, I was constantly
trusting random individuals, constantly allowing strangers to come into my
life and you know, take me to this club or
(13:03):
that club, or you know, as a teenager eighteen nineteen
years old going to the strip club. And so that
was a huge red flag that I wish I would
have saw. So I wish I would have told someone.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
College was supposed to be her new beginning, a chance
to reclaim who she wanted to become. But in the
middle of trying to figure life out, she found herself
surrounded by new people, new environments, and new experiences that
left room for the wrong person to step in. That
(13:41):
period of exploration is normal for so many young people,
but it also created a space for someone dangerous to
slip in. And that's how she met the man who
would become her trafficker, not in some dark alley, but
on her her college campus. He wasn't a student. He
(14:04):
was an older man connected to some of the other
young women on campus.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Like down here, you know, we have like a big
bounce culture. So they were bounce danced. They would be
in like bounce videos and things like that, you know,
and and so, which was very very innocent, innocent stuff
going on there.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
He pretended to be a talent scout. Eventually he fixed
his attention on Mayisha.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He befriended me, okay, and I guess he thought that
I could also. I was pretty enough, you know, maybe
to be one of the dancers in the videos. But
you know, to me, I was like, I don't have
no rhythm. I cad like, I don't I'm not gonna like,
I'm not gonna look good in the video, things like that,
and I just always turned it down. I was like,
(14:53):
that's not you know, I don't know how to do
that stuff. And he took that to to take a
liking to me, where he started to come around more
acting as though he was, you know, just scouting for
her dance talent, video talent, when he was really trying
(15:14):
to groom me.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
He was extremely friendly, open, down to earth.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I ad trusted him. I thought that he was just
a cool man that you know, was normally on campus,
and so I didn't know his intentions until the day
that he actually came to get me.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
She and her friends asked him for a ride to
the grocery store. He said yes, but only to bring her.
She thought it was weird, but she didn't ask any
questions and went along. Insteade of the grocery store, they
pulled up to a hotel. Inside the room, there was
(16:02):
a young woman who sat on the bed counting sacks
of cash.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And I was like, okay, you know, like what okay,
Like I didn't you know, I didn't understand, but I
was impressionable. So I was curious. So I'm like, oh,
she must have a good job, you know, and okay,
and so he was like, Maysha, this is you know, Anastasia,
(16:29):
and she's visiting from Miami, you know, and she you know,
she's just stopping by, stepping through, but she's about to
go to Vegas, uh tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Anna Stasia was young, bubbly, beautiful and about Maysha's age.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
She just chimed in and she was like, hey, yeah,
you know, Amana Stasian, nice to meet you. Yeah, you know,
I worked from state to stay. And she didn't really
go into what she did, but she was like, you know,
I have a really good job that pays well. But
also like I'm going on vacation tomorrow. You should come.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
May Shul said no, she didn't know. This girl didn't
have money and had a class to get back to.
But Anastasia kept pushing.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
She was so adamant. She was like, come come, it's
gonna be so fun, like we you know, we're gonna
do this. We're gonna do that, like real innocent like
teenage stuff, right, you know. And she was like, I
know you don't know me, but you know, I'm so cool,
I'm super cool. And he chimed in again and he
was like, yeah, she cool, you know, like you should go.
(17:46):
And so that now they're both encouraging me and trying
to influence me to travel to Vegas. And and she's like,
matter of fact, I can book your flight right now,
give me your name. I mean she was just like
in it, like on it, you know, And it was
almost a feeling of I felt bombarded, and it was
(18:06):
like a moment of confusion to where I had to
say yes, if that makes sense, like I didn't. I
felt like I didn't have an option to say no.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Anastasia offered to book the flight on the spot, and
she did. The next day, they flew to Las Vegas.
For the first few days it felt like a vacation,
luxury hotels, food, fun. But they kept switching hotels and
(18:36):
then they downgraded.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
The very last hotel we switched to was this hole
in the wall janky hotel. And the first thing, the
first thing I remember thinking was in my head was
did she run out of money? I was like, wait,
the deep red breaks up like girl, I got a girl.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
She laughed it off, but something felt off. That morning
Anastasia said her boyfriend was coming. When he walked in,
Maisha saw a man who looked rich.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And his demeanor was rich, you know, like and again
I'm not thinking anything of it. I'm just like, okay,
you know, it's like this. He boyfriend, and so he
walks up to me. I'm doing my makeup in the mirror.
He walks up to me, he goes, he introduces himself,
and you know, he asked me a little bit about myself,
just a little bit, just a little bit. And he
was like, well, you know, I'm glad you came out
(19:42):
here with you know, with my girl and and whatever.
And he said, man, we would have to go back
to Miami tomorrow. You should come.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
She said no, she had school to get back to.
But he pulled out his phone and started showing her
pagres and videos shopping sprees, expensive cars, yachts, mansions, and he.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Was like, don't you want to make money like us?
And I remember exactly what I said, Hunter, I say yes,
but I want to do it the right way through college.
I want to earn my degree. He started talking down
on my dream to get a degree and saying that
school wasn't for me. And school wasn't going to pay
(20:29):
my bills, and school wasn't a great option, and I
wasn't gonna be anything.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
He took the two women to go shopping. When they returned,
he told Maysha to pack her bags. She thought it
was for a flight home, but instead he said said.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
No, he's going to Miami. And his demeanor, his voice,
everything changed. And we got into the car and we
stopped at another hotel on the way to the airport.
So we're in the car, me and Anastasia. He gets
out to go and meet up with another pimp on
(21:13):
at the car beside us. The pimp has a girl
with him. The pimp takes the girl out of the
car and beats her in the hotel parking lot, in
front of me, in front of Anastasia, in front of him,
(21:35):
and you know, the pimps, my pamily and and a
stage is laughing, and I'm I'm terrified. I'm like, oh
my god. And I didn't recognize at that point that
that was him sending me a message saying, you know,
(21:56):
this can be used, this is what we do.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
It was the first clear sign she wasn't safe and
she wasn't in control in Miami. Everything shifted. They put
her in a strip club. They made her walk the streets,
and they made her approach cars outside clubs to get
quote unquote dates.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
When I the first night he put me in a
strip club, I didn't make any money, Like I was.
I was a stick, you know, I was so little,
I was shy. I was scared. And he said, this
is this all you got? This all you made? I
said yeah. He said you better go up to a
one of those calls and get a date right now,
or I'm going to beat you real bad. And I
(22:50):
was like, what is a date? Like what you mean?
And he was like, you know what I mean. And
when he said that, I was just like, oh my god,
you know, like what what am I in? You know,
like what is going on? And that's when I finally
realized that he was a pimp. It took a long
(23:10):
time because I didn't know, but that's when it actually
sat in like, oh my god, I have a pimp.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Her phone was taken. He gave her a burner and
let her save just one number.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
He said, you're you can take one phone number out
of this phone. Who will it be? And it was
my mom? But I couldn't. I didn't have the courage
to call my mom and tell her what was going on.
I was I was scared, I was ashamed. I thought
that she would blame me.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
He sent her across the country. Anastasia was always on
her trail, making sure she didn't run. She estimates she
was under his control for about eight months.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
And so he just worked me. He worked me and
worked me and worked me, you know, and sent me
from state to state, and every single time he sent
me from state to state, and a Stasia came with me.
It's extremely violent. It's extremely violent, and it's extremely dangerous.
Through it all, one thought haunted her and kept her fighting.
(24:16):
At the same time, what kind of kept you going
and hopeful that you would make it seeing my family again?
Because I knew I knew that if anything happened to
me outside of Louisiana, like knowing my family didn't know
what was going on. My biggest fear was me being
(24:40):
murdered or harmed or shipped off somewhere and my mom
not even knowing where to start to look for me at,
you know, like what state do I start from? Where
do I start? You know? And that haunted me the
whole time, and I just that's what I thought about
every day. If something had spens to me, my family
(25:01):
won't even know where I'm at or how to what
happened to me, you know. Yeah, So that's that's what
kept me going.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
She was staying in a hotel near a seven eleven
in Washington, d C. She had just seen a client.
She walked out of the hotel lobby with her head down, empty, exhausted,
and just trying to pull herself back together.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So I was on my way to the seventy eleven,
which was nearby a hotel, the hotel that I was
saying it, and I saw him, He saw me, and
I do believe that he was supposed to be an
a stage of client.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
But before anything else could happen, he looked at her,
and he noticed her. He stopped and he asked a
question no one had asked her in months. Are you okay?
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I hit my head down, but so as I'm going
out of the hotel room, you know, as a hotel lobby,
my head is down right, and I'm just like, okay,
let me just you know, gather my emotions because I
had been just been with a client, and that's depressing.
(26:29):
That's you know, that takes so much away from you
as a person. You know, it took it took away
from my self worked, you know, my my feelings of
who I was, you know, and that was a devastating
feeling of emptiness that I pray to God I never
(26:50):
have to feel another day in my life.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
The man stood there right and bubbly, a sharp contrast
to everything Maysha had endured.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
He was so bubbly, he was like, hey, how you doing,
you know, like you know, it was just like but
he was so bubbly, I mean, just almost as the
people was having the best day of his life, you know,
and it was just like wow, like I wish I
hope to someday get to that level of excitement in
(27:25):
my life, you know, of feeling just alive, you know,
just by being present.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
He listened as she told him the truth, the whole truth,
her pimp, the violence, the girl who watched her, the threats,
her fear of dying far from home. And she expected
him to just walk away like everyone else had. But
he didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You could tell that he cares about women, despite what
he may or may not have been, you know, getting
ready to be involved in right, he had a heart,
He had a listening ear. He cared that if you
(28:15):
didn't want to do that, you shouldn't be forced to
do that, right because honestly, you know that that's like
you're being assaulted over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
He said, let me buy you a flight home. He
asked about her life, her major her dreams, and then
he gave her a choice she hadn't had in months.
If you want to go home, I'll help you get there.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
When he said that he would help and he would
get me a flight the next day, I didn't believe him. Hunted,
you know, I didn't believe him, and so you know,
when we parted ways, it was kind of just like,
you know, let me go ahead on and go back
to what I was doing right now. There was again,
(29:10):
there was a piece in me that did believe him.
That's why I packed my bags. But it was also
a piece of let me just continue to work as well,
because if I don't and I don't make what I'm
supposed to make today because I'm trusting this person to
show up with me tomorrow, he don't, then I'm gonna
(29:31):
be in really big trouble and I don't want that either,
And so that was a very difficult and scary twenty
four hours for me, and I prayed, you know, I God,
like God, please, you know, don't let this man be
lying to me, you know, like please just send me home.
(29:54):
I just want to go home.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
But even then, her biggest fear, it wasn't for her
own life, it was for her family.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I didn't I was afraid to like put my parents
in danger because my trafficker and my pament kept saying,
you know that they could harm my family, and I
just wanted to protect them, Like I didn't want nothing
to happen to my siblings, my mom, you know, my dad,
like my And that's what they use. That's the things
that they tell you, like I'm going to do this
(30:26):
and this to your family if you do not comply,
or I'm going to beat you to a bloody pope,
or I'm going to sell you to a worse trafficker,
you know, and the cycle never ends.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
They parted ways with a plan in place. He would
show up in the morning, and Mayisha had to pack
her belongings and be ready to run. All she could
do done was wait for morning. The next morning, arrived
and my she woke up to a terrifying sight.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I woke up and Anastasia was It was a room
with double beds. She was sitting alongside the bed upright
like this, staring at me with my cell phone in
her hand open, looking at it. You're lying, I promised
the guy. Oh, I promised the guy. Hunter. My heart dropped.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
She scanned the room, expecting her pimp to be there.
He wasn't, but Anastasia said one sentence that confirmed her
worst fear.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I promise the guy. She goes, so bit you try
to leave us, and so at this point it's fight
a flight. I know I gotta get up out there.
So I jecked my phone out of her hand and
I said yep, and right out of the room.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
She grabbed her suitcase already packed, and bolted into the hallway.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
If if something is about to happen, it's gonna happen
in this hallway with has camera.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Anastasia walked behind her, whispering threats as she followed.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I'm pastley walking down the hallway. Took it to the elevator,
and she's walking behind me, going, oh wood, and Daddy's
on his way and all I mean, you know, and
she's telling me he's on his way, and you know
they're gonna get me and everything else.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
She made it into the elevator, down the lobby and
out the front doors, where the stranger was already waiting
in his car. She hadn't even had time to call him.
But he was there, just like he said he would be.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
He saw me like rushing out, you know, and he
was like, what's wrong with your okay? And I said, no,
she caught me, you know, and I said, I don't
know if my panther is nearby. Please, let's just go.
Let's just go. And so he got out the car.
He ushered me, you know, he got my things, he
got me in a car, and he just he drove off.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
But even then she was still terrified.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
You have to understand that I'm going from one frightful
incident to the next because I don't know this man.
Yes he sounds nice, and yes he says he sent
you know, he purchased a flight for me, but I
don't have the flight information yet. I don't have nothing
from him yet. I'm just getting in a car with
a stranger, another stranger, and put in my life in
(33:31):
his hands, and this could have turned out terrible, and
it didn't, you know, And I thank God for it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
As they drove toward the airport, he opened his center
console and handed her the ticket he'd promised.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
He opens up his console and he hands me my
flight ticket, and he says, go home, go back to school, heal,
and do something with your life. And I just cried.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
At the airport, they hugged, wrapped up in the moment.
She didn't think to get his name or number. She
just got on the flight back home to New Orleans.
Once she touched back down in New Orleans, it didn't
mean that she was suddenly safe or healed.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It was just like a sigh of relief. Hunter not
that not because I was out of the clear with
my pamp on, my trafficker, but I was back home
in New Orleans. Well, I knew if you're coming for me, now,
you got to come to all of us, my people
coming behind you.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Like she stayed at her grandparents' house, afraid he knew
where her mom lived or where she'd live on campus.
She missed a full semester of.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
College and I was depressed.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Trial It was a lot, even free from him, she
still felt imprisoned by his words. She'd been told over
and over she'd never be anything, never graduate, never get
a real job, that selling her body was all she
(35:21):
could ever do. Eventually she started to believe it.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It took me approximately, I want to say, about six
to seven months to finally like get back out into society.
But it was still bad because I started to pimp
myself out. So instead of having him controlling me, I
(35:52):
started making ads on my own and doing it on
my own because I didn't think that I could do
anything else.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
She describes that time as devastating. She says she felt broken, nasty,
and not savable. About a year after escaping her trafficker,
she found out she was pregnant by.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
A john And to be to clarify things for those
for listeners who don't know what a giant is, a
giin is someone who pays you for sex. So it
was a customer. Yes, I became pregnant by one of
my giants, which was just absolutely you know, mind blowing,
(36:46):
like it's like everything that's kept being worse and worse
and worse, you know, like it's like, man, what the hell?
What is like my life is just going you know,
and so I wound up telling him the man, that
I was pregnant, and he actually stayed around for a while.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
They dated, he went through the pregnancy with her, they
fell in love, and they welcomed a daughter, Madison. She's
eleven years old now. But two months after Madison's second birthday,
he would take his own life.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
That was extremely difficult because now he's gone, and you know,
I have a baby, and I'm going through the trauma
of not only you know, having a child due to
me being in in that situation you know of human traffic,
(38:01):
but and prostitution, but now you know, I'm dealing with suicide.
And so it was almost like it just kept coming,
kept coming, you know, blow up to blow up.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
To blow Her family had to take care of her
daughter for weeks because she wouldn't leave the darkness of
her home. But in that darkness, she remembered something she'd
once said as a teenager, Someday, I'm going to write
a book about my life.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
You have to do something, you have to get yourself
out of this. And I said, you know what, Okay,
I'm gonna write my book. Then randomly of like, I
write my book, and that is what saved my life.
That is what brought me out of the darkness, the depression,
the anxiety, the horror.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
She wrote everything, the good, the bad, the ugly, the embarrassing,
and the heartbreak. She called it stuck in traffic by
me Me Crown.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
It delves into you know, sexual trauma, you know, suicidal ideations,
the suicide of my daughter's dad, human trafficking, of course,
domestic violence. I mean it talks about each each space,
(39:33):
and each space holds its own.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
She says. Releasing it was terrifying.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
I set on it for about three months after I
wrote it. I just read it over and over and
over again because it was so traumatizing. But then I said,
I felt like I would be so selfish if I
kept that to myself. And I was scared, you know,
because I knew I would get a lot of judgment,
you know, regarding the details that I have in the book.
(40:04):
But I felt as though helping other people was bigger
than the judgment I would get, you know, And I
was like, no, I'm going to release it and I'm
going to help and I want to save some I
want to help save lives and you know, bring some
awareness to human trafficking as well as all of these
other things that.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I went through today. Maisha isn't just a survivor, She's
an advocate, especially for young people on college campuses.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
I want to con see to be an advocate for
human trafficking, and I really want my book to educate
people on what it is and how it looks, because
it doesn't have one certain aspect to it, right. It
has so many different levels hunter and it could start
(40:55):
here and in here you know, you never know. But
I also want to educate individuals on the vulnerabilities that
could leads to human traffickings such as being a runaway
such as being you know, sexually assaulted as a child
or an adult such as being you know, naive and thinking,
(41:19):
you know, trusting everybody that you come across.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
After her experience, she had to shift her own mindset
from everyone as good to being more aware and protective.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I wanted to educate college kids, college kids and their parents,
you know, to be aware of their surroundings to you know,
make sure like if you have night classes, like walk
in a group, don't walk along you know, and don't
engage in just strangers that are just around on campus.
(41:54):
You know, and they don't go there. You've never seen
them before. They're trying to get personal information on your
life or someone else's, you know, And just making sure
that everyone knows what that looks like and how to
take action and prevent it, prevent it to measures. I
(42:15):
think all of that is important. And yeah, because a
lot of people still don't even know what human trafficking is,
and I think that's a problem. I promise I can't
tell you hunter how many young women, because I've gone
to speak with many, well many, I guess, I would
say younger students at Southern University, New Orleans as they
(42:37):
be a university, and Dylitt University, and I can't tell
you how many young girls came up to me afterwards
in complete tears, telling me something has happened to them
on campus or something similar has happened to them, and
that they've never told anybody. So many young oh, so
(42:59):
many young girls, especially at HBCUs, are living with these
traumatic secrets and they're afraid of being judged or they're
afraid of being you know, outed, or or harmed, and
they don't say anything. And it's time to change that narratives.
(43:20):
It's time to take our power back.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Now, Masha is raising her two daughters, and she's determined
to protect them with the wisdom she wishes she had
at that age.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I normally, you know, I tell my oldest daughter definitely,
you know, we teach stranger danger. But I also I
teach her what my mom tried to teach me, which
is to not be so trusting. Like it's a difference
between being nice versus being super trusting, right, Like, you
can still be nice to people. You can still say hello.
(43:54):
You know, you don't have to be a complete, you know,
rude person, but you also don't have to be too inviting,
you know, like to them by what I mean by
that is, hey, how you do like spark up a conversation?
You know, you could just say hi and by that's okay.
You don't have to engage with everyone on a personal level.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Maysha knows she can't control everything, but she can equip
her girls to recognize red flags and to walk away
when something feels wrong.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Taking my power back Hunter has been one of the
most rewarding things that I've ever experienced, because they no
longer have control over what I say, what I do,
how I feel about me. You know I'm able to
(44:45):
walk into my life. I'm able to walk into my
confidence now. I know I'm beautiful, I know I'm smart,
I know you know all things that they told me,
I warrant, baby, come on out, you know, And I
was able to shun that. No. It took a while though,
you know. And so that's what I want to help
(45:05):
prevent from traffickers and pimps taking that light away from
other young ladies.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
She says, she'll keep stopping for other survivors and for
those who haven't made it out. As for the man
who bought her that plane ticket home, she hasn't been
able to find him. The airlines can't help without records,
but she still hopes he'll hear her one day.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
What I would like to say to him is thank
you for one. Thank you for showing me, reminding me
who I was, that I was that girl, and encouraging
me to tap into her and not allow her to
(45:57):
be lost in a way so that she can help
other young girls tap into who they are and do
the exact same thing for their lives. Thank you for
believing me. Thank you for trusting me and not giving
into the fear that these criminals put on outsiders to say,
(46:22):
if you step in, you will be harmed. Thank you
for not being afraid of that and being a light
in my life, because yes, without him and sir, without you,
I would not be where I am today. I don't
(46:46):
know where I would be, and that is scary. But
I don't have to think about that because I'm here
because of you, and so I want to pay it
forward Hunter in his name.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
There's no official count of how many trafficking victims tried
to escape because most cases are never reported and most
survivors are never seen. So many stories stay hidden, unspoken,
or just simply never believed. That's why Maysha is sharing hers,
(47:23):
especially with anyone still trying to find a way out.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
To listeners, I want to say, thank you for listening,
thank you for standing with me, thank you for encouraging me.
Thank you for your kind words and your continued encouragement
for me to keep going, for me to continue to
break down these barriers, break down these walls that these
traffickers and these criminals and these bad people built up
(47:50):
for me. I was able to break that down. As
what they say on social media, I built this brick
by brick, Well, you know I put that well down vibreak.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Maisha grow has survived childhood, sexual abuse, human trafficking, intimate
partner suicide, and so much more. But she is also
a writer, an advocate, a mother, and a woman who
refused to let those trying to bring her down have
the last word in her story. Her book Stuck in
(48:28):
Traffic is available through her website Growtogether dot com. You
can find the link in the description below, along with
resources for anyone who may be experiencing trafficking or abuse
or supporting someone who is. As we close out this episode,
don't forget to follow Hunting for Answers for more stories
(48:51):
like this, Subscribe on YouTube, and follow us on Instagram
and TikTok for more true crime stories and case updates.
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode.
Until next time. Hunting for Answers is a production of
(49:21):
the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hunting for Answers is a production of the Black Effect
Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. This episode contains discussions of childhood,
sexual abuse, human trafficking, suicide, and self harm. Listener discretion
is advised. Welcome to Hunting for Answers, a true crime podcast.
(00:24):
I'm your host Hunter, and today we're diving into one
woman's story about how she was human trafficked in one
of the least expected places off her college campus. She
was a young student just trying to start over, never
imagining the dangers hiding in playing sight. A man posing
(00:48):
as a friend on campus groomed her into a life
she never asked for, being trafficked across multiple states for
months until an unlikely stranger asked her a simple question,
a question that ended up changing her life. This is
(01:09):
the story of Maysha grow. Maysha's story starts in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Maysha grew up on the West Bank of New Orleans, Harvey, Louisiana.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
My name is Mayesha. My author name is Mimi Crown.
I'm born and raised in New Orleans, been here all
my life, and I grew up on a smaller side
of New Orleans, which is known as the West Bank
in Harvey, Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
She describes herself as a quiet, shy kid.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
I was always sheltered from a lot. I didn't really
get to do a lot. Is like a teenager, you know.
I didn't really have like a social life, I guess,
I would say, but I was always a very quiet,
shy child. I had a really, I would say, a
(02:15):
good childhood, but that was also some trauma sprinkled in that.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Trauma started at home.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I did grow up in a two parent household. My
mom and my dad. They were married, but he was
verbally and physically abusive to her and my sister and I.
We had to witness that on multiple occasions. And I
would say maybe from as little as four or five
years old.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
As a little girl, she wanted to protect her mom,
but she felt completely helpless.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
The feeling of helplessness that came over my sister and I,
it haunted me for a really long time because I
always felt like I didn't do enough.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Eventually her father went to jail. It was just her mom,
her sister, and her. There were good moments, big family gatherings,
Sundays on the lake front. Nineties baby memories but even
in those good moments, there were crocks forming, and someone
(03:25):
close to the family would make those crocks much deeper.
In middle school, around age eleven, Maysha was at a
family sleepover. The adults were in the kitchen, the kids
were in the back rooms. A family friend came over,
a man everyone knew, everyone trusted, everyone loved.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
This family friend was known to all of us. I mean,
we loved him. We you know, we played with him.
We thought that he was just like this wonder full
guy because he treated all the kids really nice.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
That night, she was lying on the edge of the
bed with two younger cousins behind her when he walked
into the room.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
He came into the room, and he came up to
me and he began to caress his hands up my legs,
and so I had on shorts, and it woke me
up because you know, I didn't know what was going on,
and so I woke up. And as soon as I
(04:31):
woke up and saw his face, he immediately was like
you know, and you know, I was like, wait, what
just you know, and I knew it was wrong, and
I was I was scared. So as he's caressing my
legs and his hands are moving closer up to my space.
(04:54):
You know, I was tapping my little cousin. I was like,
wake up, you know, wake up, and she refused, like
she just would not wake up. And he was like, no,
don't do that, don't do that. And I was like stop,
like I told him to stop, and he just kept
trying to go further, and I finally hit my little
cousin hard enough that she started to move a little bit.
(05:21):
You know, she didn't completely wake up, but she did
start to move a little bit, you know, talking out
of her sleep a little bit. She's trying to come
to and it startled him, and at this point his
hands were on my vagina, and she finally kind of
woke up, and he ran out of the room. So
(05:43):
when he ran out of the room, I ran after him,
like I ran behind him to lock the door, but
the door that door didn't lock. And so once my
little cousins woke up, I told him what happened. And
the one that lived there, because she was all also
in my room, she said, let's go to the room
(06:05):
next door, because that room has a lot on it
and it works.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
She locked herself and her cousins in the next room,
listening to the doorknob turn silently.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
You heard and you saw just the doorknob turning, and
my cousins and I were just huddled up together. They
were hugging me. And these are two younger girls, you know,
and so they're hugging on me. They're trying to comfort me.
And I'm just afraid. And he was not able to
(06:37):
get back into that door, thank god, but I was.
I didn't sleep that.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Night the next morning, still traumatized from the night before,
a sad realization began to settle into young Maysha's mind.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
The next morning, I woke up and I was so
scared to even open the door, even though it's daytime,
and I hear adults in the front. I'm just afraid.
And when we finally came out of the room, he
was there. He was still in the house and he
(07:15):
said good morning. He as if nothing happened. And that
is when I realized I wouldn't win that battle if
I said something that That puts something in my head
to say, Okay, if you say something, if you tell
(07:38):
someone that this happened, they're not going to believe you
because of the nature of how close they are and
it hurt me. It hurt me for a really long time.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
For a year and a half, she carried that secret alone.
When she finally told her mom, her mom broke down crying,
asking why she hadn't said anything sooner. But when she
told her dad's side of the family, the response was
very different.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I didn't tell my dad initially, but I told individuals
of the family, and the first thing they said Hunter
was he didn't mean it. Forgive them, yeah, yeah, were
people of God and he made a mistake. And that
(08:38):
just it sent me into an even deeper depression, because
how dare you like what?
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Childhood trauma, sexual abuse, minimization, and the pressure to forgive
someone who had wronged her, all of it lay the
groundwork for what was to come next. Next after the abuse,
her behavior started to change.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I began to act out in other ways, so my
behavior began to decline in school, at home, I became
I was rebelling at such a young age, and I
became promiscuous at a very young age, and my behavior
(09:30):
became really bad. I began to run away at twelve
and thirteen years old.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
She slipped into depression and didn't have the words for it.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I was sad. Every day. I was crying. I became
suicidal at twelve years old. I took approximately fourteen AD bills.
I really thought that that would in my life, and
I was okay with that.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Sadly members getting dizzy and then nothing.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So that was my first sign of saying, hmmm, maybe
they like I have a bigger purpose. But I still didn't.
It still didn't register.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
In high school, things got worse. After being intimate with
one boy, he turned a private moment into public humiliation.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
The next day, he went back to school and he
spread a rumor and told the school that I did
it with the whole entire football team. And believe it
or not, that rumor spread like wildfire, and people still
(10:49):
believed that about me till today.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
She stopped going to school. She started running to any
place that felt like escape. Friendshig houses, strangers houses.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I kind of became, you know, like this person who
just wanted to hide, right, you know, I became I
was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I was you know, labeled
as a nasty girl. You know, I just had so
many labels on me at this point, and it was
(11:26):
I just was so desperate.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
She overshared with people who didn't deserve her story, and
some of them saw her as someone they could manipulate.
Looking back, she can see it clearly.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So my biggest vulnerability was being a runaway uh and
also being at that time promiscuous, and not knowing how
to deal with either of those things.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
When she left for college, may Issha was trying to
reinvent herself to become the person she always wanted to be,
but those unhealed wounds also went with her. College was
supposed to be a reset.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I was constantly taken advantage of. And so when I
finally went to college, I was just this laid back
girl kid that's trying to revent my life, you know,
like reclaim the person that I wanted to become, and
(12:42):
trying to navigate to figure out how to do that.
You know, Yet I was constantly partying, I was constantly
trusting random individuals, constantly allowing strangers to come into my
life and you know, take me to this club or
(13:03):
that club, or you know, as a teenager eighteen nineteen
years old going to the strip club. And so that
was a huge red flag that I wish I would
have saw. So I wish I would have told someone.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
College was supposed to be her new beginning, a chance
to reclaim who she wanted to become. But in the
middle of trying to figure life out, she found herself
surrounded by new people, new environments, and new experiences that
left room for the wrong person to step in. That
(13:41):
period of exploration is normal for so many young people,
but it also created a space for someone dangerous to
slip in. And that's how she met the man who
would become her trafficker, not in some dark alley, but
on her her college campus. He wasn't a student. He
(14:04):
was an older man connected to some of the other
young women on campus.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Like down here, you know, we have like a big
bounce culture. So they were bounce danced. They would be
in like bounce videos and things like that, you know,
and and so, which was very very innocent, innocent stuff
going on there.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
He pretended to be a talent scout. Eventually he fixed
his attention on Mayisha.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
He befriended me, okay, and I guess he thought that
I could also. I was pretty enough, you know, maybe
to be one of the dancers in the videos. But
you know, to me, I was like, I don't have
no rhythm. I cad like, I don't I'm not gonna like,
I'm not gonna look good in the video, things like that,
and I just always turned it down. I was like,
(14:53):
that's not you know, I don't know how to do
that stuff. And he took that to to take a
liking to me, where he started to come around more
acting as though he was, you know, just scouting for
her dance talent, video talent, when he was really trying
(15:14):
to groom me.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
He was extremely friendly, open, down to earth.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I ad trusted him. I thought that he was just
a cool man that you know, was normally on campus,
and so I didn't know his intentions until the day
that he actually came to get me.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
She and her friends asked him for a ride to
the grocery store. He said yes, but only to bring her.
She thought it was weird, but she didn't ask any
questions and went along. Insteade of the grocery store, they
pulled up to a hotel. Inside the room, there was
(16:02):
a young woman who sat on the bed counting sacks
of cash.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And I was like, okay, you know, like what okay,
Like I didn't you know, I didn't understand, but I
was impressionable. So I was curious. So I'm like, oh,
she must have a good job, you know, and okay,
and so he was like, Maysha, this is you know, Anastasia,
(16:29):
and she's visiting from Miami, you know, and she you know,
she's just stopping by, stepping through, but she's about to
go to Vegas, uh tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Anna Stasia was young, bubbly, beautiful and about Maysha's age.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
She just chimed in and she was like, hey, yeah,
you know, Amana Stasian, nice to meet you. Yeah, you know,
I worked from state to stay. And she didn't really
go into what she did, but she was like, you know,
I have a really good job that pays well. But
also like I'm going on vacation tomorrow. You should come.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
May Shul said no, she didn't know. This girl didn't
have money and had a class to get back to.
But Anastasia kept pushing.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
She was so adamant. She was like, come come, it's
gonna be so fun, like we you know, we're gonna
do this. We're gonna do that, like real innocent like
teenage stuff, right, you know. And she was like, I
know you don't know me, but you know, I'm so cool,
I'm super cool. And he chimed in again and he
was like, yeah, she cool, you know, like you should go.
(17:46):
And so that now they're both encouraging me and trying
to influence me to travel to Vegas. And and she's like,
matter of fact, I can book your flight right now,
give me your name. I mean she was just like
in it, like on it, you know, And it was
almost a feeling of I felt bombarded, and it was
(18:06):
like a moment of confusion to where I had to
say yes, if that makes sense, like I didn't. I
felt like I didn't have an option to say no.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Anastasia offered to book the flight on the spot, and
she did. The next day, they flew to Las Vegas.
For the first few days it felt like a vacation,
luxury hotels, food, fun. But they kept switching hotels and
(18:36):
then they downgraded.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
The very last hotel we switched to was this hole
in the wall janky hotel. And the first thing, the
first thing I remember thinking was in my head was
did she run out of money? I was like, wait,
the deep red breaks up like girl, I got a girl.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
She laughed it off, but something felt off. That morning
Anastasia said her boyfriend was coming. When he walked in,
Maisha saw a man who looked rich.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And his demeanor was rich, you know, like and again
I'm not thinking anything of it. I'm just like, okay,
you know, it's like this. He boyfriend, and so he
walks up to me. I'm doing my makeup in the mirror.
He walks up to me, he goes, he introduces himself,
and you know, he asked me a little bit about myself,
just a little bit, just a little bit. And he
was like, well, you know, I'm glad you came out
(19:42):
here with you know, with my girl and and whatever.
And he said, man, we would have to go back
to Miami tomorrow. You should come.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
She said no, she had school to get back to.
But he pulled out his phone and started showing her
pagres and videos shopping sprees, expensive cars, yachts, mansions, and he.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Was like, don't you want to make money like us?
And I remember exactly what I said, Hunter, I say yes,
but I want to do it the right way through college.
I want to earn my degree. He started talking down
on my dream to get a degree and saying that
school wasn't for me. And school wasn't going to pay
(20:29):
my bills, and school wasn't a great option, and I
wasn't gonna be anything.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
He took the two women to go shopping. When they returned,
he told Maysha to pack her bags. She thought it
was for a flight home, but instead he said said.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
No, he's going to Miami. And his demeanor, his voice,
everything changed. And we got into the car and we
stopped at another hotel on the way to the airport.
So we're in the car, me and Anastasia. He gets
out to go and meet up with another pimp on
(21:13):
at the car beside us. The pimp has a girl
with him. The pimp takes the girl out of the
car and beats her in the hotel parking lot, in
front of me, in front of Anastasia, in front of him,
(21:35):
and you know, the pimps, my pamily and and a
stage is laughing, and I'm I'm terrified. I'm like, oh
my god. And I didn't recognize at that point that
that was him sending me a message saying, you know,
(21:56):
this can be used, this is what we do.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
It was the first clear sign she wasn't safe and
she wasn't in control in Miami. Everything shifted. They put
her in a strip club. They made her walk the streets,
and they made her approach cars outside clubs to get
quote unquote dates.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
When I the first night he put me in a
strip club, I didn't make any money, Like I was.
I was a stick, you know, I was so little,
I was shy. I was scared. And he said, this
is this all you got? This all you made? I
said yeah. He said you better go up to a
one of those calls and get a date right now,
or I'm going to beat you real bad. And I
(22:50):
was like, what is a date? Like what you mean?
And he was like, you know what I mean. And
when he said that, I was just like, oh my god,
you know, like what what am I in? You know,
like what is going on? And that's when I finally
realized that he was a pimp. It took a long
(23:10):
time because I didn't know, but that's when it actually
sat in like, oh my god, I have a pimp.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Her phone was taken. He gave her a burner and
let her save just one number.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
He said, you're you can take one phone number out
of this phone. Who will it be? And it was
my mom? But I couldn't. I didn't have the courage
to call my mom and tell her what was going on.
I was I was scared, I was ashamed. I thought
that she would blame me.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
He sent her across the country. Anastasia was always on
her trail, making sure she didn't run. She estimates she
was under his control for about eight months.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
And so he just worked me. He worked me and
worked me and worked me, you know, and sent me
from state to state, and every single time he sent
me from state to state, and a Stasia came with me.
It's extremely violent. It's extremely violent, and it's extremely dangerous.
Through it all, one thought haunted her and kept her fighting.
(24:16):
At the same time, what kind of kept you going
and hopeful that you would make it seeing my family again?
Because I knew I knew that if anything happened to
me outside of Louisiana, like knowing my family didn't know
what was going on. My biggest fear was me being
(24:40):
murdered or harmed or shipped off somewhere and my mom
not even knowing where to start to look for me at,
you know, like what state do I start from? Where
do I start? You know? And that haunted me the
whole time, and I just that's what I thought about
every day. If something had spens to me, my family
(25:01):
won't even know where I'm at or how to what
happened to me, you know. Yeah, So that's that's what
kept me going.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
She was staying in a hotel near a seven eleven
in Washington, d C. She had just seen a client.
She walked out of the hotel lobby with her head down, empty, exhausted,
and just trying to pull herself back together.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So I was on my way to the seventy eleven,
which was nearby a hotel, the hotel that I was
saying it, and I saw him, He saw me, and
I do believe that he was supposed to be an
a stage of client.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
But before anything else could happen, he looked at her,
and he noticed her. He stopped and he asked a
question no one had asked her in months. Are you okay?
Speaker 2 (26:04):
I hit my head down, but so as I'm going
out of the hotel room, you know, as a hotel lobby,
my head is down right, and I'm just like, okay,
let me just you know, gather my emotions because I
had been just been with a client, and that's depressing.
(26:29):
That's you know, that takes so much away from you
as a person. You know, it took it took away
from my self worked, you know, my my feelings of
who I was, you know, and that was a devastating
feeling of emptiness that I pray to God I never
(26:50):
have to feel another day in my life.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
The man stood there right and bubbly, a sharp contrast
to everything Maysha had endured.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
He was so bubbly, he was like, hey, how you doing,
you know, like you know, it was just like but
he was so bubbly, I mean, just almost as the
people was having the best day of his life, you know,
and it was just like wow, like I wish I
hope to someday get to that level of excitement in
(27:25):
my life, you know, of feeling just alive, you know,
just by being present.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
He listened as she told him the truth, the whole truth,
her pimp, the violence, the girl who watched her, the threats,
her fear of dying far from home. And she expected
him to just walk away like everyone else had. But
he didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You could tell that he cares about women, despite what
he may or may not have been, you know, getting
ready to be involved in right, he had a heart,
He had a listening ear. He cared that if you
(28:15):
didn't want to do that, you shouldn't be forced to
do that, right because honestly, you know that that's like
you're being assaulted over and over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
He said, let me buy you a flight home. He
asked about her life, her major her dreams, and then
he gave her a choice she hadn't had in months.
If you want to go home, I'll help you get there.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
When he said that he would help and he would
get me a flight the next day, I didn't believe him. Hunted,
you know, I didn't believe him, and so you know,
when we parted ways, it was kind of just like,
you know, let me go ahead on and go back
to what I was doing right now. There was again,
(29:10):
there was a piece in me that did believe him.
That's why I packed my bags. But it was also
a piece of let me just continue to work as well,
because if I don't and I don't make what I'm
supposed to make today because I'm trusting this person to
show up with me tomorrow, he don't, then I'm gonna
(29:31):
be in really big trouble and I don't want that either,
And so that was a very difficult and scary twenty
four hours for me, and I prayed, you know, I God,
like God, please, you know, don't let this man be
lying to me, you know, like please just send me home.
(29:54):
I just want to go home.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
But even then, her biggest fear, it wasn't for her
own life, it was for her family.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
I didn't I was afraid to like put my parents
in danger because my trafficker and my pament kept saying,
you know that they could harm my family, and I
just wanted to protect them, Like I didn't want nothing
to happen to my siblings, my mom, you know, my dad,
like my And that's what they use. That's the things
that they tell you, like I'm going to do this
(30:26):
and this to your family if you do not comply,
or I'm going to beat you to a bloody pope,
or I'm going to sell you to a worse trafficker,
you know, and the cycle never ends.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
They parted ways with a plan in place. He would
show up in the morning, and Mayisha had to pack
her belongings and be ready to run. All she could
do done was wait for morning. The next morning, arrived
and my she woke up to a terrifying sight.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I woke up and Anastasia was It was a room
with double beds. She was sitting alongside the bed upright
like this, staring at me with my cell phone in
her hand open, looking at it. You're lying, I promised
the guy. Oh, I promised the guy. Hunter. My heart dropped.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
She scanned the room, expecting her pimp to be there.
He wasn't, but Anastasia said one sentence that confirmed her
worst fear.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I promise the guy. She goes, so bit you try
to leave us, and so at this point it's fight
a flight. I know I gotta get up out there.
So I jecked my phone out of her hand and
I said yep, and right out of the room.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
She grabbed her suitcase already packed, and bolted into the hallway.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
If if something is about to happen, it's gonna happen
in this hallway with has camera.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Anastasia walked behind her, whispering threats as she followed.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I'm pastley walking down the hallway. Took it to the elevator,
and she's walking behind me, going, oh wood, and Daddy's
on his way and all I mean, you know, and
she's telling me he's on his way, and you know
they're gonna get me and everything else.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
She made it into the elevator, down the lobby and
out the front doors, where the stranger was already waiting
in his car. She hadn't even had time to call him.
But he was there, just like he said he would be.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
He saw me like rushing out, you know, and he
was like, what's wrong with your okay? And I said, no,
she caught me, you know, and I said, I don't
know if my panther is nearby. Please, let's just go.
Let's just go. And so he got out the car.
He ushered me, you know, he got my things, he
got me in a car, and he just he drove off.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
But even then she was still terrified.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
You have to understand that I'm going from one frightful
incident to the next because I don't know this man.
Yes he sounds nice, and yes he says he sent
you know, he purchased a flight for me, but I
don't have the flight information yet. I don't have nothing
from him yet. I'm just getting in a car with
a stranger, another stranger, and put in my life in
(33:31):
his hands, and this could have turned out terrible, and
it didn't, you know, And I thank God for it.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
As they drove toward the airport, he opened his center
console and handed her the ticket he'd promised.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
He opens up his console and he hands me my
flight ticket, and he says, go home, go back to school, heal,
and do something with your life. And I just cried.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
At the airport, they hugged, wrapped up in the moment.
She didn't think to get his name or number. She
just got on the flight back home to New Orleans.
Once she touched back down in New Orleans, it didn't
mean that she was suddenly safe or healed.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It was just like a sigh of relief. Hunter not
that not because I was out of the clear with
my pamp on, my trafficker, but I was back home
in New Orleans. Well, I knew if you're coming for me, now,
you got to come to all of us, my people
coming behind you.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Like she stayed at her grandparents' house, afraid he knew
where her mom lived or where she'd live on campus.
She missed a full semester of.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
College and I was depressed.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Trial It was a lot, even free from him, she
still felt imprisoned by his words. She'd been told over
and over she'd never be anything, never graduate, never get
a real job, that selling her body was all she
(35:21):
could ever do. Eventually she started to believe it.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It took me approximately, I want to say, about six
to seven months to finally like get back out into society.
But it was still bad because I started to pimp
myself out. So instead of having him controlling me, I
(35:52):
started making ads on my own and doing it on
my own because I didn't think that I could do
anything else.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
She describes that time as devastating. She says she felt broken, nasty,
and not savable. About a year after escaping her trafficker,
she found out she was pregnant by.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
A john And to be to clarify things for those
for listeners who don't know what a giant is, a
giin is someone who pays you for sex. So it
was a customer. Yes, I became pregnant by one of
my giants, which was just absolutely you know, mind blowing,
(36:46):
like it's like everything that's kept being worse and worse
and worse, you know, like it's like, man, what the hell?
What is like my life is just going you know,
and so I wound up telling him the man, that
I was pregnant, and he actually stayed around for a while.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
They dated, he went through the pregnancy with her, they
fell in love, and they welcomed a daughter, Madison. She's
eleven years old now. But two months after Madison's second birthday,
he would take his own life.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
That was extremely difficult because now he's gone, and you know,
I have a baby, and I'm going through the trauma
of not only you know, having a child due to
me being in in that situation you know of human traffic,
(38:01):
but and prostitution, but now you know, I'm dealing with suicide.
And so it was almost like it just kept coming,
kept coming, you know, blow up to blow up.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
To blow Her family had to take care of her
daughter for weeks because she wouldn't leave the darkness of
her home. But in that darkness, she remembered something she'd
once said as a teenager, Someday, I'm going to write
a book about my life.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
You have to do something, you have to get yourself
out of this. And I said, you know what, Okay,
I'm gonna write my book. Then randomly of like, I
write my book, and that is what saved my life.
That is what brought me out of the darkness, the depression,
the anxiety, the horror.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
She wrote everything, the good, the bad, the ugly, the embarrassing,
and the heartbreak. She called it stuck in traffic by
me Me Crown.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
It delves into you know, sexual trauma, you know, suicidal ideations,
the suicide of my daughter's dad, human trafficking, of course,
domestic violence. I mean it talks about each each space,
(39:33):
and each space holds its own.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
She says. Releasing it was terrifying.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
I set on it for about three months after I
wrote it. I just read it over and over and
over again because it was so traumatizing. But then I said,
I felt like I would be so selfish if I
kept that to myself. And I was scared, you know,
because I knew I would get a lot of judgment,
you know, regarding the details that I have in the book.
(40:04):
But I felt as though helping other people was bigger
than the judgment I would get, you know, And I
was like, no, I'm going to release it and I'm
going to help and I want to save some I
want to help save lives and you know, bring some
awareness to human trafficking as well as all of these
other things that.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I went through today. Maisha isn't just a survivor, She's
an advocate, especially for young people on college campuses.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
I want to con see to be an advocate for
human trafficking, and I really want my book to educate
people on what it is and how it looks, because
it doesn't have one certain aspect to it, right. It
has so many different levels hunter and it could start
(40:55):
here and in here you know, you never know. But
I also want to educate individuals on the vulnerabilities that
could leads to human traffickings such as being a runaway
such as being you know, sexually assaulted as a child
or an adult such as being you know, naive and thinking,
(41:19):
you know, trusting everybody that you come across.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
After her experience, she had to shift her own mindset
from everyone as good to being more aware and protective.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
I wanted to educate college kids, college kids and their parents,
you know, to be aware of their surroundings to you know,
make sure like if you have night classes, like walk
in a group, don't walk along you know, and don't
engage in just strangers that are just around on campus.
(41:54):
You know, and they don't go there. You've never seen
them before. They're trying to get personal information on your
life or someone else's, you know, And just making sure
that everyone knows what that looks like and how to
take action and prevent it, prevent it to measures. I
(42:15):
think all of that is important. And yeah, because a
lot of people still don't even know what human trafficking is,
and I think that's a problem. I promise I can't
tell you hunter how many young women, because I've gone
to speak with many, well many, I guess, I would
say younger students at Southern University, New Orleans as they
(42:37):
be a university, and Dylitt University, and I can't tell
you how many young girls came up to me afterwards
in complete tears, telling me something has happened to them
on campus or something similar has happened to them, and
that they've never told anybody. So many young oh, so
(42:59):
many young girls, especially at HBCUs, are living with these
traumatic secrets and they're afraid of being judged or they're
afraid of being you know, outed, or or harmed, and
they don't say anything. And it's time to change that narratives.
(43:20):
It's time to take our power back.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Now, Masha is raising her two daughters, and she's determined
to protect them with the wisdom she wishes she had
at that age.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I normally, you know, I tell my oldest daughter definitely,
you know, we teach stranger danger. But I also I
teach her what my mom tried to teach me, which
is to not be so trusting. Like it's a difference
between being nice versus being super trusting, right, Like, you
can still be nice to people. You can still say hello.
(43:54):
You know, you don't have to be a complete, you know,
rude person, but you also don't have to be too inviting,
you know, like to them by what I mean by
that is, hey, how you do like spark up a conversation?
You know, you could just say hi and by that's okay.
You don't have to engage with everyone on a personal level.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Maysha knows she can't control everything, but she can equip
her girls to recognize red flags and to walk away
when something feels wrong.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Taking my power back Hunter has been one of the
most rewarding things that I've ever experienced, because they no
longer have control over what I say, what I do,
how I feel about me. You know I'm able to
(44:45):
walk into my life. I'm able to walk into my
confidence now. I know I'm beautiful, I know I'm smart,
I know you know all things that they told me,
I warrant, baby, come on out, you know, And I
was able to shun that. No. It took a while though,
you know. And so that's what I want to help
(45:05):
prevent from traffickers and pimps taking that light away from
other young ladies.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
She says, she'll keep stopping for other survivors and for
those who haven't made it out. As for the man
who bought her that plane ticket home, she hasn't been
able to find him. The airlines can't help without records,
but she still hopes he'll hear her one day.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
What I would like to say to him is thank
you for one. Thank you for showing me, reminding me
who I was, that I was that girl, and encouraging
me to tap into her and not allow her to
(45:57):
be lost in a way so that she can help
other young girls tap into who they are and do
the exact same thing for their lives. Thank you for
believing me. Thank you for trusting me and not giving
into the fear that these criminals put on outsiders to say,
(46:22):
if you step in, you will be harmed. Thank you
for not being afraid of that and being a light
in my life, because yes, without him and sir, without you,
I would not be where I am today. I don't
(46:46):
know where I would be, and that is scary. But
I don't have to think about that because I'm here
because of you, and so I want to pay it
forward Hunter in his name.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
There's no official count of how many trafficking victims tried
to escape because most cases are never reported and most
survivors are never seen. So many stories stay hidden, unspoken,
or just simply never believed. That's why Maysha is sharing hers,
(47:23):
especially with anyone still trying to find a way out.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
To listeners, I want to say, thank you for listening,
thank you for standing with me, thank you for encouraging me.
Thank you for your kind words and your continued encouragement
for me to keep going, for me to continue to
break down these barriers, break down these walls that these
traffickers and these criminals and these bad people built up
(47:50):
for me. I was able to break that down. As
what they say on social media, I built this brick
by brick, Well, you know I put that well down vibreak.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Maisha grow has survived childhood, sexual abuse, human trafficking, intimate
partner suicide, and so much more. But she is also
a writer, an advocate, a mother, and a woman who
refused to let those trying to bring her down have
the last word in her story. Her book Stuck in
(48:28):
Traffic is available through her website Growtogether dot com. You
can find the link in the description below, along with
resources for anyone who may be experiencing trafficking or abuse
or supporting someone who is. As we close out this episode,
don't forget to follow Hunting for Answers for more stories
(48:51):
like this, Subscribe on YouTube, and follow us on Instagram
and TikTok for more true crime stories and case updates.
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode.
Until next time. Hunting for Answers is a production of
(49:21):
the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Hunter Gilmore
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!