She Survived Eight Years of Human Trafficking; Now Helps Other Women
Trafficked in Oxford, Mississippi out of Jackson Avenue hotel
Whatever you do today — listen to and share this story.
That’s because the miraculous stories of recovering women who have overcome the longest odds to change their lives and help others are the most inspiring to learn from and celebrate.
That's why you must stop whatever you are doing now or make time today to listen to this remarkable story from LeAnn Walters, our guest on this week's A Little Crazy Podcast with David Magee episode.
LeAnn bravely shares with us her story of being trapped in human trafficking for sexual exploitation and addiction for more than eight years until she managed to escape and enter recovery. Now, she helps other women through her work as a case manager at the Nashville, Faith-based Nashville Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition.
Her story involves living in South Mississippi, married, with children, but ending up in the hands of traffickers, working for years across several Southern states in the most dire and difficult circumstances. It’s heartbreaking, eye-opening, and must-hear educational. And during our conversation, LeAnn reveals something more stunning to me and those where I live.
For many months during her eight years under the control of traffickers, LeAnn worked out of a hotel on Jackson Avenue in Oxford, Mississippi, my small college town hometown. LeAnn explains how she worked dozens of clients a day in prostitution from the Oxford hotel until her "hips hurt," she explains. She also reveals that her trafficker was a former well-known Ole Miss football player from a couple of decades ago.
LeAnn's story is eye-opening, revealing the underbelly depths of trafficking involving drugs, addiction, prostitution, practical slavery, and assaults that occur everywhere, even in a small, snow-globe college town.
But LeAnn's remarkable story is uplifted by her bravery in sharing it, and about her powerful journey of healing, and the lessons she has learned.
She speaks with a girl-like spirit and hope, explaining how God changed her life, revealing a path to recovery and helping her make sense and purpose from the years of horror she escaped. She said faith and making her work and life about helping others are vital to her recovery journey.
Sober and working as a case manager at the inspiring Nashville Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition founded by Mary Trapnell, she gets to share her story with other women facing the same dire circumstances she faced, giving them hope and a path to safety and recovery.
In my years as a journalist and also as someone in recovery who has faced and worked to overcome trauma I have heard some stories, but trust that I have not listened to a story like LeAnn's, strengthened by her courage and vulnerability to share in the name of revealing truth to help others.
We arrived at this story because
, our A Little Crazy with David Magee podcast associate producer, worked a summer internship at NAHTC last year, sharing an office with LeAnn. Within days, they bound as friends. By the end of the summer, Phoebe says the relationship changed her life, revealing what too many women face and how they can escape, recover, help, and change the world when given the opportunity and resources.In our first days of planning the podcast's content, Phoebe said we must interview her friend LeAnn, promising the story would positively impact my and listeners' lives.
Phoebe was right, and then some. LeAnn's story and the story of NAHT, led by Mary Trapnell, is the story you need today. It's a challenging listen at times because of her powerful and needed honesty but a hopeful listen in the end. Please join us in celebrating LeAnn's inspiring recovery journey and hope, and tell others.
To join the fight, learn more about how you can help NAHT and women like LeAnn here.