2. Did those girls get rescued from the sex trade?
Yes. (And two of them ended up adopted by Stephanie’s group living in the Skagit Valley.)
On Wednesay night, December 21st, the newly deputized posse in Vancouver pulled off a daring, successful rescue of some of Dougherty’s (aka Rafferty) and Furbush’s underage sex slaves.
Remember on Tuesday evening, the night before, once the “Posse Extraordinaire” (Susie, Eloise, Heck and Billy) checked into their Victorian Suite, Susie called her daughter Stephanie to come join the posse.
Here’s how that conversation went:
“Look Stephanie, all my life I’ve been a nobody, a waitress, a mom, a housewife, an unfaithful one at that, and now I’m finally doing something meaningful – important things – and finding enjoyment in living. I helped get Eloise elected to the school board – she’s going to do some great things for our school kids. I’ve found out I’ve still got a bit of libido left in me. I’ve got new friends who have switched hats – they ditched their Make America Great Again caps for ‘Keep America moving FORWARD.’
“I’ve got a guy I want to get elected the next sheriff in Boulder – and clean up the town, especially the underage sex trade going on . . . and that’s why I’m calling. Guess what? I’m here on the west coast to break up that sex ring. Joey’s got me a room with three others from Boulder . . .”
“You are where, Mom?! With whom, mom? Doing what?!”
“Look, I checked the map, it’s only 70 miles from your farm to downtown Vancouver. You can be here in an hour and I could really use your help. I remember you telling me one of the neat things about living on the farm is that you are kind of a “halfway house” for young girls who want to get off the streets . . . Well! That’s exactly what we need to do right now in Vancouver!”
“Slow down, Mom. What’s going on? What are you doing!?”
“You remember those guys in the RV, well they were in Boulder when that murder happened and somehow they got a lead on who did it. The murder was over control of the sex trade – and our friggin’ sheriff knew it, but wouldn’t do anything about it. And now I’m doing something about it. Joey is in on the plan. Come on up, now, please!”
“Did I miss something? You’re in Vancouver but the sex trade is in Boulder?”
“Look, I’ll tell you everything when you get here. The guys in Boulder have connections in Vancouver – and one of the guys is Furbush. It’s in Vancouver where the girls start out, where they first come in from Thailand – and I’m talking underage girls, even 13-14 year-olds. And we’re going to bust them tonight but the young girls need your help!
“Okay, I’ll be leaving as soon as I can.”
——————————————————————————————————————
Back at the farm, Stephanie excitedly informed her housemates about her mom’s S.O.S. call. “It’s personal to me. Not just that it’s my mom. Not just that we can help some young women break away from being sexually exploited – you know, like some of us were. But get this! The pimp here in Vancouver is the very same guy who first gave me money back in my hometown in Montana! This is ultimate payback! Plus, on top of everything else, my mom seems to have come into her own – she sounds actually happy. Let’s go!”
The next morning, Stephanie and three of her housemates, were sitting in the Queen Victoria suite with Susie, Eloise, Heck, Billy and Joey, enjoying room service sweets and coffee. Handling the introductions of the Boulder contingent, Susie counted nine in the posse. Heck stood up to shake hands and looked every bit a sheriff, minus the badge and holster. He was burly, looking young but toughened, even sort of grisly. Mostly frowning, rarely smiling, dressed in a cowboy hat, string tie, vest, and western boots, he looked every bit like a sheriff who could handle the job.
“Heck, here, was in law enforcement, a former conservation officer. He plans to run for sheriff once we make headlines busting up this ring,” Susie said, moving on to Eloise: “Eloise was Joey and Stephanie’s teacher and now is on the school board. She’s my best friend. Billy . . . geez, what to say about Billy? He was just an acquaintance from waitressing and has become a friend helping elect Eloise, about to be Heck’s campaign manager, and frankly, he’s changed the politics in Boulder from folks thinking of themselves as Trumpers to instead being “Trumpeters.” I’ll tell you all about that some other time. Okay, let’s tell them about last night and the plan for tonight.”
“Not yet, mom,” Joey interrupted, “first we need to talk about dividing up that list of names you got from Skip who might be able to finger Shadya as part of the sex trade, then we talk about our plan for tonight.”
After dividing the list up, with instructions about using the name “Ken Vardaman” as a way of introduction, Susie said, “Now here’s what happened last night: Shadya gave Joey the address for a motel over on Garden City Road which is one of the places johns are sent to. Tonight we’re going back. Three of us – Joey, Heck and Billy – are going to ask for girls. Stephanie, you and your friends need to figure out how to rescue these three girls. Billy, tell them what happened when you showed up last night.”
“Well, Heck and I went together. Heck pretended I was his son. In front of the clerk, after telling what we wanted, Heck says to me, ‘Tonight son, you’re going to be a man,’ and asks the desk clerk for the youngest girl available. After we paid, the clerk gave me a room number, and made some joke like ‘Look kid, you only got an hour. Get to it.’
“The girl was up in the room waiting and she was really young looking. I just couldn’t go through with it. I told her I couldn’t lose my virginity this way, and left right away.”
Leslie, one of Stephanie’s friends from the farm, had had some prior experience in the trade. “Here’s what happens next,” Leslie explained. “The girl calls the front desk saying you left, and gets assigned a new room to go to, and await her next customer. But usually the girls wait out the whole hour before calling, so if you deliver them to us in the first half hour or so, they won’t even be missed until we’re long gone.”
“We’ll follow you over to that same place tonight,” another of the farm ladies explained, “watch what rooms you go to and station ourselves – hopefully park – where you’ll be able to see us from the room. Once you’re in the room, take the girl to the window, and we’ll wave – so she knows this is for real. Make sure you tell her about our farm, and that she can stay with us as long as she wants. Believe me, they are going to jump at the chance. The only reason they stay is because they have nowhere to go. Their pimp is the only security they know. Make sure the girl understands there are three of you in on this, so they won’t feel alone. Explain how you’re all going to make the break together.”
“This is where it gets a little tricky,” one of the other farm ladies continued. “If you get all three of them to want to leave, we have to time it right. If the girl in your room says ‘yes’ she wants to make the break, give us the thumbs-up sign. Then wait for us to give the thumbs-up sign back. We’re going to give you fifteen minutes to do the convincing. Once we have your three thumbs-up, we give our thumbs-up, and you walk out the room to our van with the girls.”
And that plan worked to perfection. Only hitch was none of the three girls had visas to cross the border so Joey had to put them up until things were cleared with the authorities.
On Thursday afternoon at police headquarters, the desk sergeant said they’d set up a sting operation in the next day or two. “Not good enough,” Heck said, handing over Shadya Warsame’s sworn statement. “I’m pretty sure your Chief has seen this – tell him we’re here.”
The sworn statement read as follows:
I, Shadya Warsame, and Abdul Abdul (his full name, now deceased) had connections in Somalia who knew how to pirate girls out of Thailand and into Canada using fraudulent Canadian visas. This led to recruiting Thai girls on the promise of modeling careers in Hollywood – but first a “try-out” in Canada.
Eventually we started making lots of money doing a 50/50 split with those recruiting the girls for us out of Pattaya, Thailand. I do not know if those doing the recruiting were also part of a terrorist cell or not.
A person I knew as ‘John Doe’ got involved. I never met John Doe that I know of, but he had connections with both the Thai recruiters and with some guys in the States, Montana was what I heard. They had a way of getting the girls into the States without U.S. visas – and they paid good money for the girls we delivered up.
Abdul decided to check this out for himself – and that’s the last I saw of him. Later, I learned he had been murdered in Montana with no known relatives anybody knew of.
I got out of the business as soon as I heard about the murder. I’ve been clean for four months now, but the organization is still going on. I can give names and details once I’m granted immunity.