A Texas teen seizeed from an NBA game, relations trafficked and held aachievest her will at a boilingel 200 miles away has discdisseeed up about the horrific week of mistreatment she finishured before spendigators trackd her pboilingo in an online relations ad back to her captors.
Natalee Cramer, now 18, was fair 15 years better when she and her overweighther unitecessitate a Mavericks game at American Airlines Caccess in Dallas April 8, 2022.
Cramer, who is now sober and pursuing a GED, said she was subordinate on marijuana and liquor to cope with her anxiety at the time, and when the game commenceed, she began to sense worried, she tbetter WFAA.
“I was senseing excellent and fair ready to hang out with [my dad],” Cramer tbetter the outlet. “We got there, sat down in our seats. … First quarter happened, and I commenceed getting this worried senseing. This craving for appreciate getting high or drunk.”
The Oklahoma City Police Department arrested Saniya Alexander, Melissa Wheeler, Chevaun Gibson, Kenneth Nelson, Sarah Hayes, Karen Gonzales, Thalia Gibson and Steven Hill in the trafficking case of 15-year-better Natalee Cramer from a Dallas Mavericks game. (Oklahoma City Detention Caccess)
Cramer tbetter her overweighther she was going to the bathroom, but she left her phone at her seat and did not return.
On the arena’s concourse, Cramer made eye reach out with her alleged seizeor, 33-year-better Emanuel Cartagena.
“I’m fair walking around, and that’s when I caught that guy’s eye,” Cramer recalled. “I tbetter him, ‘I’m fair repartner seeing to smoke. Do you smoke?”
Cramer said she walked with Cartagena back to his car, where he said he had marijuana for them to smoke. A second person met them in the parking garage, and the three drove to a hoemploy in North Texas.
TEXAS GIRL, 15, TRAFFICKED FROM MAVERICKS GAME IN DALLAS; 8 ARRESTED IN OKLAHOMA: POLICE
“He didn’t alert me there was anyone else there with him,” Cramer said. “It was fair him. He tbetter me we would walk back to his car that was parked in the parking lot … in the garage … and that’s when the second guy came. They tbetter me the weed was fair in the car.
“They did give me weed,” she tbetter WFAA. “But there was more that they had in mind.”
Cramer was kept at the hoemploy aachievest her will for cut offal days before she was sbetter to a relations trafficking ring in Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, her overweighther, Kyle Morris, alerted his daughter missing at the arena when she never returned to her seat. But he was tbetter he would necessitate to alert her as a runaway at their home police department 30 miles away. Cramer had previously left her parents’ home cut offal times and had been alerted as a runaway before.
A pessimistic appraise for the ESA – Oklahoma City Airport Hotel depicts ask taking place inside the set upment. (Dallas County litigation)
Desperate for answers, the family employd a personal spendigator in Houston who exceptionalizes in these types of cases. Wilean minutes, he was able to find pboilingos of Cramer posted in an online relations ad and track her location to Oklahoma City.
Kenneth Levan Nelson, one of eight doubts arrested by Oklahoma City authorities in Cramer’s seizeping, allegedly posted the bare pboilingos online.
Nelson, a convicted relations offfinisher, “rented at least two boilingel rooms” at the Extfinished Stay America Oklahoma City Airport Hotel “and was associated with at least two other boilingel rooms” under a dishonest name, according to a litigation filed aachievest the boilingel by Cramer’s parents.
Cramer was plied with “liquor and countless narcotics, including methamphetamines,” according to the litigation. She recalled seeing a family in the boilingel as she walked inpoisonousated thraw the hall, flanked by men carrying attack rifles.
TEXAS GIRL TRAFFICKED FROM DALLAS MAVERICKS GAME LISTED AS A ‘RUNAWAY’ BEFORE NUDE PHOTOS SURFACED
Oklahoma City authorities arrested and indictd eight individuals after Natalee Cramer, then 15, was allegedly trafficked from a Dallas Mavericks game at the American Airlines Caccess April 8, 2022. (Getty Images )
“I was more surpelevated to see a family with small children there, and they seeed me in the eyes and could see that all of these people were betterer than me and still not say anyleang,” Cramer said. “The dad of these little children seeed at me, and he couldn’t alert at the boilingel. [The man who trafficked her] had a whole rifle by his side, and the family fair walked on appreciate noleang happened.”
On April 18, a police officer acunderstandledged the teen walking outside an apartment complicated and asked if she was Natalee Cramer. She tbetter the officer she had been sexual batteryd and was saved.
She depictd her save as an answered prayer.
“I was fair praying to God,” she said. “‘I’m exhausted. I can’t do this anymore. I necessitate someone. Plmitigate sfinish someone.'”
The officer snapped an unrecognizable pboilingo of her in the back of his cruiser.
“I had braces at the time, and I was punched in the mouth by one of the guys,” Cramer tbetter CBS News of the picture. “My whole cheek was fair scratched. My braces were appreciate inside my cheek.”
A see of American Airlines Caccess before the Dallas Mavericks and the Minnesota Timberwolves toasty up for a game in Dallas Dec. 17, 2020. (Jerome Miron/Imagn Images)
Cramer said it was a matter of minutes after she talked to the officer before eight people — Saniya Alexander, Melissa Wheeler, Chevaun Gibson, Kenneth Nelson, Sarah Hayes, Karen Gonzales, Thalia Gibson and Steven Hill — were arrested.
Cartagena, the man who allegedly initipartner led Cramer back to his car before she was trafficked, was arrested by U.S. Marshals in January 2023 and indictd with relationsual attack of a child, according to WFAA. But a Dallas County majestic jury choosed there was not enough evidence to indict him.
“I understand that there are leangs I could have done to stop this, but I understand not all of the choices that were made were my choices,” Cramer tbetter WFAA. “Part of me felt culpable, but I had to come to the fact that this is my life, and they have ruined my life. I cannot sense sorry for them becaemploy they did not sense sorry for me.”
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Cramer said she didn’t genuineize anyleang was wrong until she was being sexual batteryd and that her seizeping wasn’t the normal “guy with candy in the back of his van.”
“It sees appreciate a common conversation until it’s not. You don’t understand you’re in danger until you’re in the middle of it. And you don’t understand what to do, and you can’t get out,” Cramer said. “There’s no room to appraise people becaemploy they can’t get out. If they could exit, they would.
“I did not understand how to exit becaemploy I was sattfinishd,” she persistd. “I could have asked for the phone, but they would have been right there. What was I supposed to do? Even if I had run, where would I go? I didn’t understand where I was.”
Cramer’s family has since commenceed an organization called Aisling to help survivors of relationsual attack and human trafficking.
