Dubuque Teen Escapes Human Trafficking Thanks to Lessons Learned from Movie

A horrifying situation has been uncovered in Cedar Rapids involving a Dubuque teenager, who was kidnapped and forced into prostitution against her will.

Per KCRG, a Dubuque teenager was sex trafficked by two individuals who have since been caught. They are Tana Torres and Jarod Anderson. Both individuals abducted the underage girl, drugged and abused her, and sold her to different men from a Quality Inn motel room in Cedar Rapids.

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It's a sick, depraved, and inhumane crime committed by lowlifes, but even that somehow feels like an understatement. If there's a silver lining at all, it's that the mother of the teen has been reunited with her daughter following her kidnapping in May. She was missing for five days before she escaped from Torres and Anderson, and also credited a movie with teaching her what to do in the event of human trafficking.

The movie is called Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey. Released on Lifetime in 2018, it tells the true story of Lisa McVey, who was abducted and brutally raped for 26 hours by serial killer Bobby Joe Long.

The film looks at how McVey was able to act swiftly and levelheadedly when she was kidnapped. She made sure to leave her fingerprints on various surfaces for forensic testing. She left strands of her hair under Long's bed, and memorized details of his apartment.

The mother of the Dubuque victim says that her daughter claimed to have employed similar tactics, such as leaving articles of clothing behind and ample DNA in hopes that she would be found and safely return home:

She was smart enough to do the fingerprint thing, she was smart enough to be able to hide a phone, there’s just a lot of things that she took from that movie. - the victim's mother, per KCRG

Cedar Rapids Police say at the Quality Inn hotel, Torres and Anderson gave the underage girl drugs, including methamphetamine, took explicit pictures of her, and then sold her for sex.

This is a horrific and ugly situation, but one that could've had a much more tragic ending. Torres and Anderson are now in custody, and the Dubuque teen is now reunited with her family, with hopefully ample counseling services, such as the great Riverview Center, at her disposal.