DALLAS — Editor's note: This story has been updated after the teenager was found safe in Utah.
Protecting her daughter's identity has been important to Brooke Morris for the past four months. Her story has been plastered across headlines, but she's made sure her photo and name weren't used.
That changed after the teen was reported missing.
"She's lost her way," Morris said. "I want to help her find her way. I want to help her. We just don't know where she's at."
Morris's daughter was reported missing after she ran away from a treatment facility in Layton, Utah, just north of Salt Lake City.
Thankfully, the teenager was eventually found safe in Utah on Tuesday evening.
Morris said she had been at the center for about two weeks and that she spoke to her daughter last Tuesday, two days before she ran away.
"The conversation we had with her was with her therapist, and he had seen some good work," Morris said.
Morris said her daughter had told her there was "drama" at the facility, but she chalked it up to the fact that there are about 40 other girls at the center. She said the teen sounded generally positive and cheerful about the center, her therapist and the center.
“From what we understand, there was an episode or an event," Morris said. "It triggered her. Her flight-or-fight kicked in. She’s not a flyer, not a fighter.”
Morris said the facility and local law enforcement were quick to respond and were actively looking for her. She and her husband are currently in Utah for the investigation.
“I do not think she was in her right mind" Morris said. "I think she was triggered, and that’s no one else’s fault. She’s on her own healing journey."
In April, the girl was reported missing after she was seen leaving a Dallas Mavericks game with a man her mother said she didn't know.
“She met up with a guy and left," Morris said. "What we’ve gathered from her, was that it was kind of a 'let’s hang out until the games over' kind of situation and she left. We now know she was in the area for about an hour and a half."
Almost two weeks later Oklahoma City police found the girl in a hotel room after a non-profit group that fights human trafficking used its database to find online sex ads featuring photos of her and reported them to police.
“She was passed from person to person to person in Dallas and then moved to Oklahoma City," Morris said. "It seemed to be a very organized thing. A very intentional thing."
Morris said, according to her daughter's story and reports, she believes the teen was sexually assaulted before being moved from Dallas. She said someone tried to traffic her in Dallas but moved her to Oklahoma because she was being "uncooperative."
“There’s still many details she doesn’t know," Morris said. "Unfortunately, she was drugged in Oklahoma and possibly Dallas so her memory is very scattered as it is. Over time, she has been remembering more and more and more, but there are still large blocks of time missing. She described it to me, at one point, as like a dream. Like, if you have a dream and you try to tell somebody about that dream. You know it in your head but you can’t really tell someone about it.”
Multiple people were arrested in Oklahoma City in connection to the trafficking ring the teen fell victim to. Morris said her daughter has been in recovery for months.
She graduated from a three-month program in Colorado before moving to Utah. Morris said they'd seen a lot of progress.
"Enormous strides in just healing herself and healing relationships with my husband and I and our son," Morris said. "It was so great, and that’s why this is no mind blowing because she had made all of those steps in the right direction."
Morrs's attorney, Zeke Fortenberry, is an advocate and volunteer for human trafficking victims and organizations. In a statement, he said: "Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence for young victims who have suffered a serious traumatic event such as sex trafficking. The mental anguish she endured while being trafficked is something she will have to work through for the rest of her life.”
Despite the progress she'd been making in her healing, Morris said the trauma, guilt and shame her daughter faces is great.
"This is a psychological trauma response," Morris said. “This is a response to horrible things that happened to her that you and I can only imagine."
