The case of a teenage girl who went missing during a Mavericks home game and turned up with sex traffickers in Oklahoma has been closed with no convictions in Texas.
Kyle and Brooke Morris recently learned that Dallas County prosecutors were no longer working on their daughter’s case. They lamented the lack of arrests made in Texas, arguing that the inaction further silenced sex trafficking victims.
“She was never even afforded the opportunity to tell her story to the people who could pursue it on the law enforcement side,” Kyle Morris told CBS News Texas. “She wanted to, and she was told she would be given that opportunity to speak with the prosecutor.”
Although both parents met with Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot, they claim he never “substantively interviewed” their daughter. Moreover, they said her therapy notes attesting to having been sexually assaulted and trafficked in Dallas went unread.
As previously covered in The Dallas Express, the Morrises’ then-15-year-old daughter disappeared from the American Airlines Center on April 8, 2022, which is in Council Member Jesse Moreno’s District 2. After reportedly being bounced around between the Dallas Police Department and the North Richland Hills Police Department, whose jurisdiction covered where the family lived, a missing person’s report was finally filed.
The young girl was found by police 11 days later at a hotel in Oklahoma City. Eight individuals were arrested at the time on human trafficking charges and outstanding warrants.
In Texas, Emanuel Jose Cartagena, 33, was arrested nearly nine months later, at the end of January 2023.
“On behalf of the victim and her parents, we are pleased to learn that Emanuel Cartagena has been arrested for sexual assault of a child,” the Morrises’ attorney, Zeke Fortenberry, said in a statement to The Dallas Express at the time. “We believe Cartagena to be the man who originally lured the victim from the Dallas Mavericks game at the American Airlines Center before sexually assaulting her in Dallas.”
However, at the end of October, a Dallas County grand jury declined to indict Cartagena, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
According to a statement from Creuzot, whose tenure has prompted criticism from detractors for being soft on crime, his office was “confident that any possible criminal offenses were presented.”
“By law, the Grand Jury deliberates in secret. Per office policy, we did not make a recommendation to the Grand Jury, and we will respect their decision,” the statement continued.
In Dallas, offenses related to human trafficking have soared since the new year, with the City clocking a 19.5% year-over-year increase in reports as of November 29, according to the DPD’s crime analytics dashboard.
Complicating efforts to address crime, DPD currently employs only 3,200 officers, while a City report recommends that a municipality the size of Dallas maintain about 4,000 to maintain public safety.
The effects of this deficit are most apparent in Downtown Dallas, which regularly logs higher crime rates than Fort Worth’s downtown area. The latter is patrolled by a dedicated police unit and private security guards.