Dallas Police Department
Surveillance footage of Natalee with the man who trafficked her
Three years ago, Natalee Cramer went to a Dallas Mavericks game with her dad. Just before halftime, Natalee, who was 15 at the time, went to find a bathroom. As she walked around the arena, she met a guy she thought looked just a little older than her. He asked her to go with him to his car. “I thought I had met a cute guy that just wanted to hang out for a little bit,” she says.
In the parking lot, the pair were joined by another guy. “I was surprised,” she recalls. “I felt outnumbered and very small.” The two men gave Natalee some weed. And then the unimaginable happened: She was thrown into the back of a car.
Natalee didn’t have her phone, so she couldn’t call for help. The marijuana, which she believes had been laced with other drugs, was making her feel sleepy and confused. She had no way to fight back. “It was very scary,” she says. “I just knew I had to stay strong and do whatever I could to survive.”
Natalee was eventually found 10 days later in Oklahoma City, about 200 miles from Dallas. She was rescued after an investigator discovered photos of her on a sex trafficking website. The site claimed she was 21 years old.