Court hears of teen's life before the streets.

BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

The Dallas detective listened as the Wichita teenager described a troubled past that led her to work as a prostitute on the streets of his city.

Detective Michael McMurray testified Wednesday in the trial of Marlin Williams -- charged with human trafficking for allegedly taking the teenager to Dallas.

Williams' trial is the first case filed in Sedgwick County under a new law against human trafficking aimed at people who "recruit, harbor or transport" minors to engage in sex. The girl is not being named because The Eagle does not name victims of alleged sex crimes.

She told McMurray:

Her parents divorced in Michigan when she was 8 years old, and she moved to Wichita with her mother, who abused alcohol and cocaine.

When the girl, barely a teen, brought home a 34-year-old man,

her mother said it was all right for him to move in with them. The girl became pregnant by him and had a baby at 14. He went to prison for having sex with her because she was so young. She went to live with an aunt.

The aunt, however, couldn't handle the teen.

"Her mom obviously wasn't a stable environment, and the aunt didn't want her," McMurray told prosecutor Christine Ladner.

The girl ended up at the Wichita Children's Home but ran away after failing a drug test.

She said she later found herself in a car with Williams driving to Dallas.

"This is not something I stewed up in my own mind," the girl testified earlier in the day. "I knew where we were going. I knew what I was going to be doing."

McMurray said his job with the Dallas vice squad often involves locating juveniles prostituting themselves. On May 4, 2007, McMurray was driving in an area of the city where girls "walk the track," as they say, along Northwest Highway near I-35, when he saw the girl.

She lied about her age, saying she was 17. She was 15.

"I'm a police officer," he remembered telling her. "Every day, someone lies to me. Sometimes, it's people on the street, sometimes it's my sergeant. But every single day someone lies to me. I'm not mad at you. But I'm not going away until I find out who you are."

The girl began talking.

Earlier, the girl testified that she earned about $6,000 in two weeks in Dallas, most of which she gave to Williams.

Williams' defense cross-examined the girl about a MySpace page and her use of the social networking Web site.

Brad Sylvester, Williams' lawyer, asked her about a headline on the page that included references to money, "hoes" and sex. He indicated she was advertising herself as a prostitute.

The girl, now 16, said it was a quote from a hip-hop song and had nothing to do with prostitution.

Ladner rested the case for the prosecution Wednesday afternoon.

The trial is in recess until Friday, when Williams' attorney hopes to call Williams' wife as a witness. She lives in Louisiana and her travel plans were complicated, Sylvester said, by the recent hurricane.

Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or rsylvester@wichitaeagle.com.