Woman drove teen from Mississippi to North Texas to sell her for sex, records say
Madison Murphy of Starkville, Mississippi, planned to make money with a suspected Texas pimp, according to federal court documents.
That plan included placing ads with Instagram photos of one of Murphy’s relatives on the internet promoting her for sex, and waiting for responses which came rapidly because of the 16-year-old’s youthful appearance, authorities said.
In June, Murphy, who was in contact with an alleged pimp, drove her 16-year-old relative from Mississippi to North Texas and sold her to have sex with a man in Fort Worth for $300, according to federal court documents obtained by the Star-Telegram this week.
In Texas, there are about 79,000 victims of youth and minor sex trafficking at any given time, according to the state attorney general’s office.
After that night, Murphy sent threats to her relative so that the teen would continue to perform sex acts in the coming weeks, authorities said.
But after that one night in June, the 16-year-old, left alone in a North Richland Hills motel, called North Richland Hills police, who responded to her call for help and rescued her, according to federal court documents.
Murphy was taken into custody as was the girlfriend of the alleged Fort Worth pimp.
Murphy is awaiting indictment in the federal case, accusing her of child sex trafficking.
A federal complaint of child sex trafficking against Kristen Hamilton, the suspected pimp’s girlfriend, was dismissed just days before Christmas last month, according to court records.
“In the interest of justice, the government moves to dismiss the complaint without prejudice as to defendant Kristen Hamilton,” federal prosecutors wrote on the motion to dismiss.
“Additional investigation into the case showed that Ms. Hamilton wasn’t responsible,” said Wes Ball of Arlington, Hamilton’s attorney, in a telephone interview with the Star-Telegram on Wednesday. “She was a victim.”
The search for the suspected pimp continues.
A transcript of the preliminary detention hearing for Murphy in September provided this brief account of the alleged trafficking case:
After the ads were placed, Murphy convinced her 16-year-old relative that they were driving to Fort Worth in the summer of 2020 for a modeling job. Murphy also brought along her younger sister.
The three arrived at a Motel 6 in North Richland Hills on the night of June 23.
Less than an hour after arriving in North Richland Hills, and in a motel room, the teen was told that she needed to get ready because she was going on a date, meaning she was going to meet a man and have sex with him, according to the transcript.
Murphy, the teen and Murphy’s younger sister drove to a Fort Worth home, where they met with the suspected pimp.
The teen was given instructions that they were going to drive to another Fort Worth home where a man was waiting for her.
The teen was driven to the home, where she performed sex acts on the man and was paid. She had to send a photo of herself receiving the cash.
The Mississippi teen left that house and was picked up by Murphy, the alleged pimp and his girlfriend. The 16-year-old gave the money to the girlfriend.
She was driven back to the Motel 6 in North Richland Hills and left there with Murphy’s younger sister. The teen told authorities she had received death threats from the alleged pimp, saying he would kill her if she said anything about what happened or if she didn’t cooperate.
The 16-year-old had been told more dates had been lined up and she was going to do more sex acts, according to court documents.
The teen, when she was left alone in the motel room, decided she was not going to cooperate, and called 911.
When officers arrived, Murphy was still at the motel. Armed with a search warrant, police found condoms and lubricant in Murphy’s car after she was taken into custody.
In an interview after she was rescued, the teen told Fort Worth officer Tim Matthews that she said, “I’m not doing this anymore,’ and called authorities. Matthews was working as a task force officer with Homeland Security Investigations.
During the investigation, authorities determined that the ads with photos of the teen had been placed on a sexually-oriented website, and the phone number for those ads were linked back to the suspected Fort Worth pimp.
The teen told authorities that she never took photos for the ads, and that the photos came from her Instagram account.
