It was the day after Christmas in 2012, and Sandy was hunting for a wooden salad bowl at the outlet mall in Edinburgh when her cellphone rang. The Carmel woman dug the phone from her purse and glanced at the caller ID.
She didn't recognize the number.
Sandy almost tossed the phone back in her purse, but something made her hesitate. She decided to listen to the voicemail.
A man identified himself as Detective Chad Opitz, part of an FBI task force in the Portland, Ore., area.
I met your daughter today, Opitz said. She's OK, but I'd like to talk to you about her.
"I wanted to vomit," Sandy recalled.
Her oldest daughter, then 18, was supposed to be with a friend in California for the holidays.
When Sandy returned the call, Opitz said he was a member of an FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. Sandy's daughter was a victim of human trafficking; her daughter was being sold for sex.
"My world just stopped," Sandy recalled. "I remember the feeling really well."
In the months that followed that call, Sandy would have to absorb the full impact of Opitz's words. She would learn that girls and young women in all walks of life are vulnerable to what law enforcement officials say is the fastest growing segment of organized crime. Human trafficking occurs when someone uses force, fraud or coercion to control other people and profit from their labor or sexual exploitation.
A 2014 report from the International Labour Organization estimates that forced prostitution alone generates roughly $99 billion worldwide.
While many victims come from shattered homes, where love and money are scarce, even daughters like Sandy's fall prey. Young women become vulnerable through low self-esteem, sexting, dating violence or wanting to fit in and be loved, said Tracy McDaniel, who serves on the Indiana Protection for Abused and Trafficked Humans task force.
She said most victims have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault, molestation or absent parenting, or they have been involved in the child welfare system.
"What I compete with every day is not the trafficker but manufactured love," McDaniel said. "The need to be loved by someone is what all of these girls are seeking."
The Indianapolis Star agreed not to use Sandy's last name to protect the identity of her daughter, who declined to speak to The Star but gave permission for others to tell her story. Sandy and McDaniel said they hope it brings awareness to a problem that afflicts Indianapolis and all of Indiana.
"We have a high demand for sex in our city," said McDaniel. It was a fact Sandy would become all too familiar with.
Protecting her trafficker
Sandy's daughter met her trafficker while working at a mall in Central Indiana. He lured her with his Jaguar and promised her the world, Sandy said.
The 18-year-old followed him to the West Coast.
Opitz said he began investigating the case involving Sandy's daughter when he saw an advertisement that appeared to be selling sex.
The police detective said he scheduled a "date" through the ad but didn't show up. Opitz said he just wanted to figure out which hotel the trafficker and girls would be in, so officers had a location for the next morning.
When they knocked on the door, Opitz said the trafficker escaped by jumping out a second-story window. The man left Sandy's daughter and two other women to fend for themselves.
Opitz said it was "very clear" Sandy's daughter was protecting her trafficker. He said the young woman sounded like a robot that had been told what to say.
"You could tell how green she was through this whole thing," Opitz recalled. "You can tell the people that have been doing dates for a while and those that haven't."
Opitz got Sandy's number from her daughter's phone, which was the one being used to advertise sex.
Opitz asked if Sandy wanted her daughter to come home.
"Of course," Sandy replied.
"If you want her home, I won't stop until I get her there," Opitz said.
'I love you, Mommy'
The detective told Sandy not to let her daughter know that they'd spoken, to act as if everything was normal.
Soon after, Sandy received a text from her daughter. It came from a different phone number. The text said, "I lost my phone, so this is the number you can reach me on until I get a new one." It also said Sandy's daughter and her friend were traveling.
Sandy texted a reply to her daughter.
"I just said ... 'I love her and want her home, no matter what situation she's in,' " Sandy said.
She received one more text from that phone number: "I love you, Mommy."
Sandy said her daughter hadn't called her "Mommy" since she was 3.
After 24 hours of silence, Sandy said, Opitz told her to file a missing person's report with the Carmel Police Department.
Then he asked her to let her daughter know that she knew. Sandy sent a flurry of texts but no one responded.
She didn't know whether she'd ever hear from her daughter again.
'I could get her home'
On Jan. 5, 2013, Sandy awoke to the shrill ring of her cellphone. Her heart pounded.
It was Opitz.
He said the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office had taken her daughter into custody and arrested two other women and their trafficker in Everett, Wash., a city north of Seattle, as part of a sex trafficking investigation. Opitz said Sandy's daughter was cooperating with police and would need help getting back to Indiana.
"It was the best feeling in the world to know she's somewhere safe," Sandy said. "I could get her home."
A few hours later, Sandy said police brought her daughter to a safe place and gave her $40. Sandy arranged for a car to pick up her daughter and take her to the airport.
Sandy, her husband, younger daughter and several others waited at Indianapolis International Airport.
The 18-year-old ran through the airport to get to them. Everyone was crying.
"Just to be able to hold her," Sandy said, pausing as she choked back tears.
'They tried to tell me'
Sandy said nothing could have prepared her for the changes in her daughter.
When the young woman left Indiana, she had a medium shade of blond hair and an average body shape.
Her trafficker wanted her to be skinnier, so he wouldn't let her eat much more than lettuce and carrots, Sandy said. Thin girls fetched a higher price. If her daughter wasn't working or sleeping — and she didn't get a lot of sleep — she was exercising.
She returned "so skinny it was disgusting," Sandy recalled.
The trafficker also decided Sandy's daughter needed to be platinum blond, but the bleach was left in too long. As a result, her scalp was burned and her hair was falling out.
"They tried to tell me, tried to prepare me for how different she looked," Sandy said. "They couldn't prepare me for that."
The changes weren't just physical.
Sandy's happy-go-lucky daughter was gone. She didn't laugh. And she was quick to anger, lashing out at loved ones.
It was like having a stranger in the house, Sandy said. She didn't know what to say or do.
Sandy said an advocate from Washington told her not to ask too many questions and to let her daughter talk. The advocate also warned her that half of human trafficking victims return to that life.
Three weeks later, Sandy's husband woke her up at 3 a.m. Her daughter was packed and about to leave their home. A cab waited outside.
"We can fix this, it'll be OK," Sandy said.
"I can't do it," her daughter replied. "I gotta go."
'A different kind of fine'
Sandy said she heard from her daughter on and off over the next few months. She was arrested twice for prostitution and once for possession of drugs. All charges were dismissed, Marion Superior Court records show.
The criminal charges didn't deter Sandy's daughter from her destructive lifestyle.
"Life was black, life was ..." Sandy stopped, shaking her head. "I don't think she cared whether she woke up the next day for a really long time."
After Sandy's daughter was charged in April 2013 with possession of drugs, police reached out to McDaniel and asked whether she could help.
At the time, McDaniel was working as care coordinator for human trafficking at the Julian Center. She helps victims of human trafficking get access to counseling, housing, medical coverage and basic needs such as food and clothes.
But, like most victims, Sandy's daughter wasn't ready to accept assistance. It would be about six more months before she asked McDaniel for help. By that time, she was homeless and had been a victim of violence.
She moved back to Sandy's house in fall 2013. She got a job and began to receive therapy and other services.
Step by step, Sandy's daughter, now 20, is transitioning to a healthier place.
McDaniel said Sandy's daughter had something a lot of other girls in her situation didn't: a loving family.
Sandy said it took her a long time to realize life wouldn't be "rosy and normal" when her daughter came home. There were days her daughter hated herself. She'd do well for a week, two weeks or a month, then something would happen and she'd think she didn't deserve happiness.
Sandy said her daughter is fine, but she called it "a different kind of fine."
"Is she ready to conquer the world? No," Sandy said. "She's got a long way to go to heal, a lot of therapy. But when she falls, we're there to pick her up again."
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