Ava*, a fourteen-year-old middle school student in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, carried the same hopes and dreams as most kids her age. But life at home wasn’t easy, and one day she decided she would be better off if she ran away. It didn’t take long until a trafficker recognized her vulnerability, picked her up in a high-crime pocket in Dallas County, and took her across the county line into Denton County, where she was sexually exploited.
One day, while Ava was being transferred by her trafficker, a patrol officer noticed her sitting in a car at a park during school hours with two older men but didn’t immediately recognize the signs of what was going on. Thankfully, a detective who arrived shortly after saw it clearly and knew that Ava needed protecting. Both men were arrested that day.
Officers photographed her middle school ID and her backpack – small, ordinary items most kids carry to school on a typical day. These details would later help the jury understand exactly how young and vulnerable Ava really was.
By the time the case reached trial, Ava couldn’t be located. The prosecutor, Elena Smith*, would have to make the case for a girl the jury would never meet.
How HTI Supported the Case
Months earlier, Elena had attended an HTI training for prosecutors and law enforcement on cases like this one, giving her the tools to walk the jury through Texas’ trafficking statute in terms most jurors had never had reason to learn.
For the case itself, she turned to HTI directly. HTI’s team reviewed the indictment, helped explore ways to locate Ava before trial, and when that didn’t work, recommended expert testimony on the dynamics of trafficking. That led Elena to two people from a local nonprofit who knew Ava well: Grace, her former advocate, and Denise, her care coordinator. Grace gave testimony about who Ava was as a person, while Denise explained the cycle of exploitation to a jury encountering it for the first time. HTI also helped shape the trial strategy and connected the prosecutor with tools that help investigators identify trafficking victims online.
A Verdict Without Ava
The jury convicted the trafficker on every count without Ava present at trial: forty years for trafficking of persons, seventeen for sexual assault of a child, running consecutively so he can never harm another child again.
“Not having Ava in that courtroom was the hardest part of this case,” Elena said. “We had to tell the jury that even though she couldn’t be there, their verdict would still reach her, that it would tell her people cared what happened to her and fought for her. HTI’s training gave me the tools to make that argument, and their team was with us from the indictment through closing. I don’t know if we would have gotten such a meaningful sentence without that support.”
After the Verdict
Within a month of the verdict, Ava was finally found. She was connected to victim services and began her path of healing.
Afterward, Grace, who stayed for the entire trial, told Elena what it meant: “You didn’t just win a case, you were part of history in the making.” The verdict didn’t just hold one trafficker accountable. It set a precedent other prosecutors in Denton County can now build on.
Cases like Ava’s only end in conviction when officers, prosecutors, and advocates know how to work together, and that’s what HTI is building toward.
Ava is continuing her path to healing, knowing that the people who caused her so much harm will never have the chance to do it again.
*Names have been changed for privacy.
