Texas teen kills herself two years after being rescued from sex trafficking ring as 'she never got over the man who abducted her'
HOUSTON, TEXAS: A Texas teen took her own life two years after she was rescued from a sex trafficking ring and her family is now demanding justice.
Leticia Serrano, known to her loved ones as "Letty", was kidnapped and sold into sex-trafficking in May 2017 at the age of 13. She was then drugged and sexually abused—an experience she never got over.
Letty’s family said that she was never the same after they successfully rescued her after finding her in an abandoned home near Moody Park in Houston. “We got her back damaged,” Letty’s grandmother Cynthia Rivera told ABC13.
Although Letty was a high-achieving student at Marshall Middle School in 2017, she was a loner at school—a fact that her family said her captor preyed on. She was abducted not far from the campus.
Even after Letty's family reported her kidnapper to the police, they said in a separate interview to Fox26 that she never got over the older man who abducted her and introduced her to sex-trafficking.
"She wanted to be with him," he said. "But she also didn't want to hurt her family."
Following her rescue, she even ran away from home twice to be with her abductor.
Although her family left no stones unturned to celebrate her 15th birthday with a lavish quinceanera party, which included a ruby-red princess ballgown, bouquets of roses and a dessert bar, it was not enough to make her forget her abductor.
Just six months after her birthday, Letty locked herself up in the bathroom and committed suicide. "She died in my arms," the heartbroken father said.
Now Letty's family are demanding justice for their daughter, urging authorities to get the sex trafficker, who was freed just days after being arrested, the punishment he deserves. "I want to see him in court," the father said. "I want to tell him it's his fault my daughter is dead."