5 Years Trapped: Survivor Says Hotel Staff Looked Away

Over the course of the last few years, there has been a heavy emphasis placed on sex trafficking in Amarillo. We've seen a lot of those fly-by-night massage parlors get busted for offering prostitution, and some of those charges end up coming back as trafficking.

It's grown a lot, not just in Amarillo and Texas, but across the country. Even out of the country, from a standpoint of people being kidnapped or manipulated into something and being taken across the border. Now, trafficking survivors are taking a stand, and one of them here in the Texas Panhandle is making some serious noise.

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Panhandle Trafficking Survivor Taking A Stand

The victim has chosen to stay anonymous and is going by Jane Doe. She was trafficked from 2013 to 2018, a long five-year stretch where her entire being was controlled by two men. How does one get controlled, you might ask? According to court documents, one way the men did it was by forcibly injecting heroin into her system to be able to control her.

She goes on to say there were several other methods they utilized in order to control her, but for that five-year stretch, she was forced to do many things against her will. Traffickers tend to book hotels on a regular basis and use them as a home base. They'll line up "customers", give them the location and a time, and they show up. Well, Jane Doe is now taking a stand and suing the hotel they frequented.

Red Roof Inn In Amarillo and Lubbock The Target

The traffickers found a perfect home base in Red Roof Inn, not just in Amarillo, but in Lubbock as well. What made these hotels perfect places for them? According to court documents, it's because they ignored obvious signs of the trafficking going on.

Some of those signs included paying for the room with either cash or a prepaid card, guests showing up at the hotel with very few items for an extended stay, and a high volume of men showing up at unusual times. These were allegedly all noticed by regular staff members, but constantly ignored.

History Of Sex Trafficking At Red Roof Inn

In the lawsuit, it's stated that a manager at the Amarillo location even made mention of it, stating he “knew what was going on and should call the police.” He never did, and the traffickers continued using the location and were never caught.

Red Roof Inn is allegedly known as a hot spot for traffickers around the country, as it is apparently well-known within the trafficking community that the hotel allows the activity to happen and that employees always turn a blind eye to it, even if they have suspicions.

The case was originally filed in Lubbock County, but it has been moved to federal court, underlying the seriousness of the case.