Cold Case and Human Trafficking Press Conferences from Hernando County Sheriff

I'm glad that the work was done.  That justice was served for these victims.  And most of all, that people are now safe from these vicious predators.  This was really a lot of accomplishment in a short time, and it must be rewarding for their team and the community.

But I'm not able to sit through either press conference, because of the constant use of the phrase "true victims."

The crystal clear message is that other victims deserved whatever they got.

Over and over again, as Sheriff Niehaus repeats that phrase "true victims, these were true victims" because they were such innocent young girls, it underscores exactly why his colleagues put in such little effort to look for my friend Wendy Huggy when she was kidnapped in 1982:  she was a rotten little slut and it was her own fault.  Not a true victim, like an 11-year-old who gets abducted getting off the school bus.

Much less any adult sex worker or drug user.  Or a woman who chose to marry a man.

The police considered Wendy an adult because she was married and pregnant at 16.  She was married because her mother abandoned her at 15.  She was allowed to marry a 27-year-old man in Illinois without her mother present or any parent's signature.  That will never stop blowing my mind.  Then that made her a legal adult.  Which allowed the police to not even look for her.  So she wasn't what this guy would have called a "true victim."