"In the hills above California's Wine Country, a teen girl held her 2-year-old son for the last time, then handed his lifeless body to her accused pimp, she testified at a recent court hearing. The man allegedly dug a three-foot, unmarked grave on the side of a secluded Napa County road and placed Jamari Madkins, the boy he is suspected of killing, inside. They then drove to the East Bay."
"The then-17-year-old girl, identified in court records as Jane Doe, returned to the life she'd known she was first trafficked at age 13, sleeping in cars or cheap motels throughout high-prostitution areas of Northern California, her trafficker always nearby. Unable to grieve her son in silence - and with nowhere else to turn - she began to confide her trauma in strangers who would pay $100 to sexually abuse her for a few minutes each day, she testified at a September hearing."
"Doe's tragic life story, as she described it under oath, was detailed over two days on the witness stand at a preliminary hearing, when she testified against 25-year-old Keonte Harris, an Antioch resident who faces life in prison if convicted on charges of beating Jamari to death and trafficking Doe. She is a key witness in the Alameda County District Attorney's prosecution of Harris, whose attorney has taken aim at the credibility of Doe's account of the days leading up to the toddler's burial."
A teen who was first trafficked at about 13 returned to street-based sex work after becoming homeless and pregnant as a young teenager. By 14 she was pregnant with Jamari and by 15 she was a mother. At 17 she described sleeping in cars and cheap motels in high-prostitution areas, with her trafficker constantly present. After her son was allegedly beaten to death and buried in an unmarked grave, she said she began confiding her trauma to paying strangers. She later testified against a 25-year-old man who faces charges of trafficking and killing the child.
Read at The Mercury News
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