Lindsey Hanks – Part V

Between the ages of 16 and 22, Lindsey’s life spiraled. Living in the projects with her aunt and mother, she sought to fight her poverty using whatever means necessary. 

She’d already sold her body regularly in exchange for money or drugs before she went to boarding school. When she returned from Colorado, she saw no other means to earn the money needed to extricate herself. She took the bus to places in Austin where the street corners were filled with sex workers. One of these intersections was Georgian and Powell, in north central Austin.

Friends of mine from the area have said that the Noñoz Tacos at this block aren’t worth eating because of how easy a drive by target it is, being level with the street and having transparent windows exposing everyone inside.

Another intersection she ‘worked’ was 12^th and Chicon, a neighborhood so gentrified now that Lindsey won’t recognize it by the time she gets out. 

I tried to imagine the consistently dangerous nature of her life. She was a white girl, a minor, walking Austin’s most dangerous streets, sticking out more than a post-partum hemorrhoid. 

Sure, I had my fair share of gang-related associations, especially with drugs, but this was different. On the one hand, I was conducting business with gangsters- on the other, pimps wanted to own her. Still, that little white girl held her own out there on those streets. 

She began dating a pimp, Clement Elendu when she was 16, a relationship that lasted for a year. He was 22, but had his own place and his mom would cook for her. It was the only support Lindsey felt at the time. He beat her whenever she did something he didn’t like: staying out without letting him know where she was, not making enough money, etc. She hated it, but didn’t feel she had anywhere else to go. Sure, she could go back to sharing an efficiency studio with her mom and aunt, but that didn’t seem any better. 

After a year of Clement’s abuse, she’d run away. She bought a bus ticket to Dallas on her mom’s card to meet a friend she knew from the streets. Said friend mentioned that her mom was OK with Lindsey moving in and painted a picture of their apartment as something out of a Home & Garden magazine.

Lindsey told me what the reality was. “Their place didn’t even have running water or electricity. The building was condemned, disgusting and there were roaches and bugs everywhere. I couldn’t really live there, even though I appreciated everything she was trying to do for me.”

So she set out for the bus station after just two days of trying to make it work in that house. She had no money as she’d spent everything trying to get to Dallas and start over. Sure, she made money hand over fist when she was ‘working’, but money made fast is spent fast. As anyone who has ever made an income on the wrong side of the law will tell you: that lifestyle leads to poverty. If that weren’t the case, estates in the Hamptons would be filled with drug dealers (not including the Pfizer and big pharma executives). 

When she arrived at the bus station she sat down with her belongings and waited. She was hoping her mom might be able to send her some cash or a ticket, but needed a second to compose her thoughts before reaching out. A car pulled up to the curb where her bench was. The window rolled down. A black guy was on the inside. He yelled to her, “Hey can you help me out? I’m looking for my brother.” Lindsey approached and asked what his brother looked like. The guy was vague before driving off. A few minutes later though, he returned. “Hey you need a ride baby?” Lindsey was out of options at this point. Her mom hadn’t called back and her debit card wasn’t working. She hopped in, thinking he was just another trick to turn for some money.

As soon as she got in the car, the man took off. He snatched her phone out of her hands. “This is mine now.” He asserted. What seems to be an obviously stupid decision to us privileged readers didn’t seem so bad given the circumstances. Lindsey felt she truly had nowhere else to go. Besides, she’d spent several years hopping into guys’ cars for ‘rides’ that made her money. 

This guy happened to have a nice car, money, food and a place; at least one level of Maslow’s hierarchy that Lindsey didn’t have when she hopped in. 

The man introduced himself. “I’m Miller Mac and you belong to me now, hoe. I’m going to take care of you, but don’t you ever let you get yourself out of line, I’ll fucking kill you.” He drove her to his place. “Man he used to beat the absolute shit out of me” Lindsey confided at one point. “Like whatever movie you’ve seen about domestic abuse, worse than that.” 

Many of the stories Lindsey told me about this man, like much of her other experiences, have been cut out due to their severity. Suffice it to say that Lindsey was severely and horrifically abused by him. (Miller Mac isn’t his real name. Lindsey asked it to be redacted because she worries that this man would kill her.)

Lindsey tried her best to escape. One time, after pleading for help with her situation to 2 Iranian clients, they snuck her out of the hotel Billy was pimping her out of to the bus station and left her with some cash. Out of extreme coincidence and incomprehensibly cruel fate, Billy showed up there before her bus was scheduled. “Get in the fucking car bitch, before I kill your ass.” His threat was a verbal brandishing of the gun he carried. Lindsey was powerless. 

He would end up holding her hostage for several months after her mom filed a missing person report. Eventually Billy got word about the report and knew the situation had to end. He drove her out to a parking lot. “I remember he was actually kind of nice to me that day.” Lindsey said. 

They parked behind a pickup truck before exiting their vehicle. Two Hispanic men exited the pickup before approaching with smiles. One handed Billy a stack of cash. “Then they just knocked me out cold.” Lindsey recalled. They placed her in the backseat of the pickup and drove off. 

“I acted like I was still knocked out for so long. I didn’t know where I was or what was going on, but I knew it was really bad.” The men were heading for the border, kidnapping her to be sold or trafficked somewhere internationally. “I just knew, if I didn’t escape when I had the chance that my life was over.” Her opportunity couldn’t come soon enough. 

While Lindsey was still playing dead, the car jolted and came to a halt on the side of the road. The driver swore in Spanish. The tire had popped. 

“I realized that this was my chance and I had better take it.” 

As soon as both men were outside of the truck, she popped out of the back and took off running, barefoot. 

“I ran like my life depended on it, because it literally did. I ran faster than I ever had in my life.” With the adrenaline coursing through her body, she didn’t even realize she had sliced her foot open on a piece of glass. As she stumbled into the nearest store she could find, she was bleeding profusely on the floor. 

“What the fuck!” the cashier exclaimed when he saw her. Lindsey looked down and saw her foot bleeding. 

“Listen I can’t explain, please let me use your phone!” The man let her call and went to fetch bandages from one of the aisles. Lindsey dialed her mom three times, to no avail. When the man returned, he helped her bandage up.

“Why don’t you just call the police?” the man asked. 

“The police can’t help me.” It was a statement Lindsey believed true. Her past experience had shown her the police were willing to lie, abuse and exploit people using their power. She didn’t have any faith in the system to save her, and why should she? It hadn’t done anything to save her until this point anyways. 

She hobbled outside and sat on the curb, crying. Another car pulled up, this time an older white guy. “You need a ride?” It was always the same. Thankfully this guy wasn’t a pimp and didn’t try to kidnap her. He paid her for their ‘time’ together and dropped her off at the bus stop before buying her a ticket home. When Lindsey finally got home, she had to be taken to the hospital and admitted as her foot had become infected with staph. They removed the glass and she spent several days recovering.

“I wanted to get my life back together after all that” she shared. During her time in the hospital she decided to sober up. 

Upon turning 18, Lindsey got herself a job, then an apartment before enrolling into Austin Community College (ACC). Before long, the monotony of life was whipping her. She had never dealt with the trauma, never learned any life skills, had no budgeting experience, couldn’t stay focused and life came to overwhelm her. 

Just like Brooks from Shawshank Redemption, she had been institutionalized into this life of crime. It takes a lot to unpack this kind of trauma; EMDR, psychotherapy, psychiatry, etc. Lindsey didn’t have the wherewithal, patience, self-understanding or money to even approach these topics.

She would end up getting back together with her abusive ex, Clement Elendu. Feeling obligated to help him since he was down on his luck and needed a place to stay, she saw a situation that mirrored her own when they met. Within a couple weeks, he was back to beating her again. She dropped out of college and quit her day job. Clement forced her to strip at the clubs for cash: A road that lead her back to cocaine. (NOTE: Clement Elendu is now a registered sex offender, having been convicted of indecent exposure- a crime that victimized a 1 year old child.)

She met a man by the nickname of GoBay, another predator 30 or so years her senior that groomed her in a different way. He taught her how to advertise her body online, on sites like Backpage. Backpage was a website seized by the feds that no longer exists today. 

With this new, highly scalable approach, her pretty looks and youth on display, she began to make thousands of dollars per week. She went shopping for everything one could think of, had multiple shoes and outfits; treating her friends to everything nice. She was ‘hood rich’, a term used for people that hit a windfall and spend their cash on meaningless things without taking care of the essentials. It’s like when someone spends thousands on shoes and rims, but has nothing to eat in the pantry; complete financial illiteracy.

The splurging wasn’t enough to plug the hole in the center of her heart. She sought the love and affection she was never afforded by her family. She initiated intimate closeness with men, hoping to gain the affection her father wasn’t around to give her. She had long lost all sense of self-esteem and replaced it with the hate that comes from a lifetime of misery, a lifetime of never once getting a break. What hate she had before for herself, her friends, her family was overshadowed by the new and improved hate. Hate 2.0. This version of the ego running her life was contrived primarily of evil. 

She didn’t care about anyone, herself included. Everything she overindulged in was what she lacked in her previous selves’ lives: Her Xanax addiction brought the peace of mind she so desperately needed, but never could manage to attain throughout life. The sex work gifted her the financial freedom she lacked in her later teenage years, with the sex itself serving as a false form of intimacy she required, but never experienced. Her criminal accomplices provided the community that her broken family failed to give. Her selfishness was the result of no one having truly taken care of her needs.

This was the girl that resulted from the relationship with her drug dealer turned pimp and eventual co-defendant, Da Ryan Simms. She had traded her soul for this lifestyle and was addicted to the Xanax he sold. When he beat her, it confirmed her self-doubt and self-hatred. Every time he choked her or degraded her, it made her feel understood. At last she fit in. At last someone ‘got’ her. She lived a life of instant gratification; a life of service to her ego. Her impulses were her masters and Da Ryan was her pimp, their enabler. 

One day a client called her over to his home. 

Right off the bat, Lindsey could tell this guy was different. He was handsome, but he knew how to treat a lady. He dared to be nice. 

They bonded over the awkward realization that they both preferred needle delivery over smoking or snorting. It’s a method typically looked down on for meth, even in the drug world. They shared jokes and talked into the night; about deep topics: life (he wanted to know Lindsey’s backstory), the afterlife, spirituality, God. The man was a veteran, he appeared to be an actual good guy.

What do I mean to call him a ‘good’ guy? Well, as a client in Lindsey’s industry, it meant looking her in the eyes, having real conversations; inquiring into how she felt. It’s common etiquette in normal social interactions, but not in the sex work industry. This man did all of the above and more: He joked with her, smiled a genuine smile, told her she was pretty and meant it as more than a prelude to dirty talk. 

Something inside Lindsey wanted to believe him. Despite her hate and self-loathing, deep down she wanted to believe that some guy out there could still be hers, would put up with her and try for her. This guy seemed to promise her just that. He didn’t even make a move, instead inviting her to partake with him and use some of his drugs. While it may not seem like much to the uninitiated, for the addict this is akin to inviting a stranger to watch your kids without supervision. After all, meth doesn’t grow on trees. 

He spent the entire night with her, without once making a move or trying to have sex with her. This was a first for Lindsey. He fed her, let her use the bathroom, dared to let her become comfortable. 

It was like a light shone out of the darkness. Maybe he was a knight in shining armor. He had baggage too though, which made it easier for Lindsey to believe. He said all of the right things, and it made her comfortable in a way she never expected to be around a man, much less a client. 

By the end of the night he offered to let her stay in the house, rent free, no strings attached. Lindsey was flummoxed. This was really happening. Of course, things changed. 

The sexual energy that came out of Lindsey was a part of her persona. She dressed promiscuously and was flirtatious- coping skills from a lifetime of valuing herself through men’s eyes. Soon, he began to drop hints, getting a little more inviting. But Lindsey didn’t want this to be the same as every relationship she’d had. She wanted to act and feel like a princess, like she was worth the wait; worthy to be wooed- even though she never believed herself to be. 

Within 48 hours, he told her she needed to leave. For some, it may seem like a punishment for refusing his advances. In reality, it was probably him coming to his senses after the come down. Can you imagine waking up from a party, a hangover, a come down and finding out a complete stranger from the opposite sex has partially moved into one of your rooms and expected to live with you long term? It’s a sobering thought.

Without a home, Lindsey had to sleep in her car for the rest of the night thereafter. In this way, he just reinforced what every single man Lindsey ever dared to be with since she was 12 had said: You are not good enough. In this way, he became Miller Mac, GoBay, the Hispanic dude from Hairy Man Road, the friends’ older siblings, her teenage drug dealers, Da Ryan Simms and even her father Preston. And for that reason, she hated him. 

Lindsey’s pimp was a wannabe, controlling when he wanted to be. He’d wondered where she’d been the last few days. When he found out, he started plotting; a fact unbeknownst to her.

When the client called Lindsey back for another appointment, Lindsey didn’t want to take anyone, but Da Ryan insisted she take him and his friend, Kendall Ellis. They rode with her there, secretly carrying guns; something that Lindsey was unaware of. 

Just another day in the life at this point, right? 

Lindsey went into the home carrying the entirety of her life’s baggage with her. She sat on the couch, defiant and unwilling to cooperate with this man who’d ‘betrayed’ her. As the client was rejoining Lindsey in the living room, Da Ryan and Kendall broke in and pointed their guns at him. 

This guy was a military veteran. He was also a Texan. He didn’t surrender. 

When he made a move towards his guns, Da Ryan shot him twice, ending his life. This is the tragic story of the death of Jerrod Stanford. 

The ensuing days were a blur for Lindsey. She tried overdosing on Xanax twice, to no avail; her threshold was too high. She doesn’t remember anything about those days. She doesn’t remember talking to the police or anything that she said. She was a hard person, but she was so far gone that it’s a stretch to even use the word ‘person’ to describe her.  

She would eventually be arrested in Austin for a DUI, before the ensuing investigation into Jerrod’s death would have them transfer her from Travis to Williamson county. This would be where she remained for five years until a plea bargain led to her conviction of aggravated robbery and eventual transfer to a TDCJ correctional unit. 

Lindsey has been locked up since she was 22. She was sentenced to 35 years and cannot be released until she is at least 40 years old. Her co-defendant Kendall Ellis, a man that planned and committed the robbery alongside her pimp received only a 20 year sentence for burglary of habitation and is already up for parole. Sure, it’s a fate better than Jerrod’s, but it isn’t justice. 

So, I ask you, the reader to help me help Lindsey. This girl didn’t deserve such a life. Now that you know it, you must help. Do not just pass by, without action. Don’t just fall into the forest line, like the rest of the trees. Feel her pain, her grief, her regret; and then forgive her and allow her to find redemption. In order for us to try to #FreeLindsey, we must first #SeeLindsey- and that is the point of her story being here. Join me, join us as we call out to the powers that be and demand action, demand justice. Let’s be a part of history. Let’s #SaveLindsey. 

Only action will beget action. Please, help … and by doing so let’s right this wrong and try to make sure it never happens again. With your help, it can be done. 

God bless, and thank you all for reading.