Decatur County Sheriff’s Office Makes Human Trafficking Arrest

The Decatur County Sheriff’s Office made a human trafficking arrest on Thursday.

Here’s what happened:

Investigator Robert Humphrey received a call from an investigator with the Tallahassee Police Department requesting the DCSO’s assistance with a 17 year old female that was considered a fugitive from justice.  Although a 17 year old is considered an adult in Georgia, the state of Florida considers that age person to be a juvenile.  Regardless, the 17 year old girl was considered a key witness in a federal case involving human trafficking and had tampered with a monitoring device and thought to have left the state.

The Tallahassee Police Department had intelligence that led investigators to believe that the girl was with a man simply known as “Big Boy” and, after tracing his cell phone location, believed the pair was in Bainbridge.  Investigator Humphrey began conducting his own investigation and determined that the two were most likely at the King’s West apartments.

Investigator Humphrey and Sgt. Adam Mobley (DCSO Career Criminals Unit) set up surveillance on the apartment and confronted Big Boy and the suspected female in the yard of the apartment.  Although the female matched the photo of the missing girl, she continuously denied that it was her and gave the name “Mango”.  When Investigator Humphrey called the TPD and asked if the girl went be any other names besides the one originally provided, he was informed that she sometimes went by “Mango”.

The juvenile was arrested on several federal warrants and transported to the Decatur County Jail where she is scheduled to be extradited to Tallahassee.

“This was a very unique case”, said Robert Humphrey, “it’s not often that we have something like this.  But we were just doing our jobs and I’m glad we had the opportunity to help out another agency.”