Last year in Kansas City and its surrounding areas, the Department of Homeland Security executed three successful busts of human sex trafficking. One of these operations, which occurred on May 3, 2023, focused on identifying and rescuing victims who were being trafficked for sexual exploitation. This operation led to the arrest of 22 individuals and rescue of two sex trafficking victims.
“When individuals think of human trafficking, it often conjures up images of popular Hollywood movies that usually take place overseas, but in actuality this crime is happening right here in the Heartland,” Homeland Security Investigations Kansas City’s Special Agent in Charge Taekuk Cho said in a press release. “That’s why educating the community on what human trafficking looks like is so vitally important.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey defines human trafficking as “a modern form of slavery involving the exploitation of a person for involuntary labor, services, debt bondage or commercial sex through the use of force, fraud or coercion.” Human trafficking is currently considered to be the second largest criminal enterprise worldwide, yet only around four percent of law enforcement agencies in America have full-time human trafficking investigators.
Dan Nash is a former Missouri state trooper with 27 years of experience. In 2021, Nash, along with the former director of the Missouri Attorney General’s Anti-Human Trafficking Statewide Task Force, Alison Phillips, founded the Human Trafficking Training Center. This center works to educate law enforcement on the signs of human trafficking when patrolling and building cases. “When you look at skills-based training in law enforcement across America, only eight percent of law enforcement have any skills,” Nash says. “They’re just not getting the training. We don’t get it in the academy. I never got it in my academy. I learned it later in life.” According to Nash, while law enforcement is knowledgeable on how to spot prostitution, it’s common for victims of sex trafficking to be mistaken for criminals themselves and treated as such. “Only 17 percent of law enforcement in America have any human trafficking training whatsoever,” Nash says. He defines trafficking as: “forcing someone to commit a crime, whatever that crime is. Generally, what we see is prostitution, but it can be other crimes as well. It can be whenever you’re forcing someone to commit crimes that you are profiting from, and you’re using force, fraud and coercion to do that.”
It is currently estimated that somewhere between 81 and 99 percent of prostitution is linked not to individuals choosing this line of work, but rather to sex trafficking. However, when victims are questioned by law enforcement, most will deny that their circumstances are a product of human or sex trafficking. Nash estimates that only six to seven percent of victims are willing to self-identify, with most victims electing to lie due to their distrust of law enforcement as well as fear of repercussions from their traffickers. Sex trafficking can be conducted in many ways, from forcing an individual into prostitution to entrapping an individual in sexual slavery for a single beneficiary. “The TV shows us a woman or girl being sold to multiple men, and that’s absolutely true,” says former Washburn University professor and human trafficking expert Sharon Sullivan. “But sex slavery to one person is another form of human trafficking or sex trafficking.” Sullivan is currently involved in the fight for clemency for one such victim, Sarah Gonzales-McLinn.
As Sullivan highlights, media often leads the public to believe that sex trafficking occurs underground within criminal enterprises. As Dave Ranney, an activist at Topeka Correctional Facility, says, people often assume that “trafficking is limited to pimps and prostitutes.” Perhaps this distorted image of sex trafficking has even become comforting, as it is so alien to our everyday lives of working, shopping, attending family functions and interacting with neighbors. Disconcertingly, the truth of sex trafficking is that it exists with ease in these familiar settings, and the beneficiaries of such crimes are often average individuals, not crime kingpins and gang leaders. This truth is one so discomforting that it becomes safer to choose ignorance over observance. Sarah Gonzales-McLinn’s story is a reminder of just that.
The Trial and Conviction of Sarah Gonzales-McLinn
On January 14, 2014, then-19-year-old Gonzales-McLinn was living in the Lawrence, Kansas, home of 52-year-old Harold “Hal” Sasko as his sexual and financial slave. That evening, she drugged Sasko with his own sleeping medication, zip-tied his limbs and slashed his throat with a hunting knife before writing “Freedom” on the wall in blood. From there, she fled with Sasko’s car and her dog to Texas and, later, to Florida to see the ocean before her inevitable arrest. She was taken into custody 11 days later from Everglades National Park, and just three days later, Gonzales-McLinn was charged with first-degree premeditated homicide in the death of Sasko. The charges were filed unprecedentedly quickly, according to Gonzales-McLinn’s representative from her evidentiary hearing, Jonathan Sternberg.
During her initial questioning, the interrogating officers spent just shy of four minutes questioning Gonzales-McLinn on the sexual nature of her relationship with Sasko. She, like the majority of victims in her situation, did not initially identify herself as a victim of sexual violence. Furthermore, Gonzales-McLinn was never informed of the definition of rape or trafficking within the state of Kansas, and as her clemency petition highlights, “the word ‘rape’ does not appear in the transcript of the interview” at all.
Forensic psychiatrist Marilyn Hutchison was hired to conduct a psychological evaluation of Gonzales-McLinn and uncovered that she suffered from dissociative identity disorder, also referred to as multiple personality disorder. Hutchison conducted eight sessions totalling 17 and a half hours. Her conclusion was that it wasn’t Sarah who was present at the murder—it was her alternate identity, known as Alyssa, acting in self defense to prevent another alternate personality, Vanessa, from committing suicide. Hutchison went on to claim in her 2014 psychological evaluation of Gonzales-McLinn that Vanessa attempted to stop Alyssa from committing the murder, even attempting to untie Sasko before Alyssa prevailed, slashing Sasko’s throat. Hutchison noted that Alyssa delighted in being a person who is not weak, whereas Vanessa was depressed and anxious, and that Sarah herself “died” at age 16 following a violent rape she experienced. Ultimately, Gonzales-McLinn was diagnosed with pronounced PTSD, DID, major depression, bipolar II disorder and schizophrenia.
Two weeks after Sasko’s death, in a motions hearing on Jan. 28, 2014 at which Gonzales-McLinn was not herself present, District Attorney Charles Branson argued that it would be “inappropriate for [the defense’s] expert to discuss any of the allegations of abuse that the defendant allegedly suffered except for what is necessary for the expert to indicate her findings.” Branson claimed that abuse allegations would not be proper in front of the jury during the “guilt phase” of the trial, as it would be “information that would be used to create sympathy for the defendant.” Branson then went on to state that evidence of abuse would be proper only during the penalty phase of trial. In response, the defense attorney, Carl Cornwell, remarked: “The State’s already presupposed that we’re going to get to a penalty phase. I’m hoping that the jury’s going to find that my client did suffer from this mental disease.”
Despite Cornwell’s assertion that, without Sasko’s abuse, “we don’t get to where we are today,” district court judge Paula Martin determined that no evidence of Sasko abusing Gonzales-McLinn would be permitted during the trial except the psychological evaluation of Gonzales-McLinn, which didn’t touch specifically on Sasko’s abuse but on Gonzales-McLinn’s overarching history of sexual abuse spanning her childhood and adolescence. Judge Martin felt that Gonzales-McLinn’s actions, not Sasko’s character, were on trial. Cornwell failed to properly inform Gonzales-McLinn of Judge Martin’s suppression of evidence regarding Sasko’s abuse, and Gonzales-McLinn later stated she was shocked and confused as to why her situation leading up to Sasko’s death was not included in her trial.
While many murder trials center around whether the defendant committed the murder at all, this was not the case in Gonzales-McLinn’s trial, as it was always understood that she was the killer. Rather than pleading complete innocence, Cornwell focused his arguments during the guilt phase of trial on motive, asserting Gonzales-McLinn be found not guilty due to mental defect—a defense previously referred to as pleading insanity. Cornwell later testified that this was his first time utilizing this defense at trial. Despite Gonzales-McLinn’s extensive diagnoses, Cornwell’s defense ultimately failed due to the prosecution’s ability to prove premeditation, citing Gonzales-McLinn’s Google search history and statements she had made prior to the killing about having murderous ideation—though it was found that this ideation was not attached to one specific person and was rather a generalized delusion brought on by Gonzales-McLinn’s increasingly unstable mental condition. In order to plead not guilty by reason of mental defect, premeditation cannot take place, according to Sternberg.
After a six-day jury trial, Gonzales-McLinn was found guilty. The conviction was announced by the foreman of her jury, an 18 year old man. On Sept. 4, 2015, she was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison, with a mandatory sentence of 50 years served before being eligible for parole. This sentence is commonly referred to as a “Hard 50.” Since Sept. 22, 2015, Gonzales-McLinn has been incarcerated at Topeka Correctional Facility.
Since her trial, Sternberg has argued that mental defect should not have been used as Gonzales-McLinn’s defense but rather what’s commonly referred to as the battered woman syndrome defense. “It’s a showing of delayed self-defense,” Sternberg says. “This happens to women and men who are abused long term. In an attempt to escape, they will take the opportunity they have to subdue their attacker and leave, and courts, including Kansas, have recognized that this is a special form of self-defense which absolutely would have applied to Sarah’s case.”
The Pre-Conviction Life of Sarah Gonzales-McLinn
Originally from Topeka, Kansas, Sarah Brooke Gonzales-McLinn was the second child born to parents Michelle Gonzales and Robert McLinn. She has one sister, Ashley McLinn, who is three years older than her. The sisters both recall a tumultuous household during childhood due to their mother’s adopting three foster boys and their parents’ volatile divorce. During this divorce, Gonzales-McLinn struggled with depression and self-harm, and her relationships with her parents became contentious. Gonzales-McLinn has recalled her father during this time as “weak” and “emotional.” She and Ashley even recall having to take on a parental role toward their father.
Around the age of six, Gonzales-McLinn was sexually abused by a “demented” neighbor who, with some regularity, attacked her in his shed near her family’s backyard, forcing Gonzales-McLinn to watch as he skinned dead animals before assaulting her. When her parents became aware of the assault, they never took legal action or addressed the trauma with their daughter, and to this day, there have never been any charges brought against him. Then, when Gonzales-McLinn was 16, she endured a particularly violent rape by an aquaintence who left her with cigarette burns from the assault that resulted in permanent scarring. In numerous interviews and testimonies since, Gonzales-McLinn regularly indicates this rape as the catalyst for permanent fractures in her mental state. As Dr. Hutchison states in her evaluations, Sarah “died” as a result of the rape. In place of a stable, core self, her identity split, and her grasp on reality was loosened.
At 14 years old, Gonzales-McLinn found employment at a Lawrence Cici’s Pizza branch, locally owned by then 46-year-old Hal Sasko. When Gonzales-McLinn turned 16, Sasko began showing an interest in her that, up to that point, she had never experienced. He would ask personal questions about her family life and about her scars from the rape. He began texting her much more frequently than her family was aware of and began instilling in her how “special” he felt her to be.
“The first thing is there’s clearly grooming from the time she’s a teenager,” human trafficking expert Sullivan says in describing this period of Sasko and Gonzales-McLinn’s relationship. “Sasko’s providing her comfort. He’s taking her out of school for special lunches. He tries to be somebody she can trust, and we [later] learn there’s ulterior motives.” Sasko encouraged Gonzales-McLinn to refer to him as “dad,” and Gonzales-McLinn’s sister even recalls noting that her sister had saved Sasko’s contact in her phone under the name “Dad.” “[Having Gonzales-McLinn] call him ‘dad’ keeps him as an authority figure, in the same ways that our parents would,” Sullivan says.
Leading up to Gonzales-McLinn’s 18th birthday, Sasko invited her to live in his Lawrence home, promising to provide financial stability and emotional support. Two months prior to her birthday, she graduated from Topeka High School a semester early and officially moved into Sasko’s home as a housemate.
As we are now aware, Sasko was far from a father figure. He was a predator, an experienced groomer and a rapist. In court records from evidentiary hearings and an official petition for clemency on behalf of Gonzales-McLinn, Sasko has a documented record of seeking out young, vulnerable women experiencing adversity at critical times in their personal growth. Days after his death made the news, an unidentified Lawrence mother of twin 16-year-old girls reported to police that she had long suspected Sasko of grooming her daughters. According to the clemency petition, “In the days before Mr. Sasko’s death, [the mother] and the girls’ high school counselor had discussed filing a no-contact order against him.”
In addition to seeking out vulnerable girls in real life, Sasko was an avid viewer of violent pornography and had a fetish for videos of women being assaulted while unconscious. Evidence of these searches were found on Sasko’s computer but ruled “irrelevant” at trial. Sasko was known to brag to friends and family that living with the 18-year-old Gonzales-McLinn “was the most amazing thing in the world.” Despite Gonzales-McLinn’s numerous rejections to Sasko’s sexual advances and condemnations from his own family that his behavior was “indecent,” as a nephew stated in court records, Sasko was methodical and relentless in his pursuit for absolute control over Gonzales-McLinn, both financially and sexually.
In spite of a 2014 article in People magazine that Sasko tried to “steer [Sarah] from gangs,” while living in his home, Gonzales-McLinn was provided with and encouraged to consume unlimited amounts of vodka, cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy on a daily basis. Her dependence on these substances grew and served to further her dependence on Sasko, who would soon begin to repeatedly threaten her into sexual activity. Just months after Gonzales-McLinn moved in and now having an estranged relationship from her biological parents, Sasko began threatening to kick Gonzales-McLinn out, forcing her into homelessness. He would assert that Gonzales-McLinn had racked up a “bill” to him of thousands of dollars for her living expenses, which he would sue for were she not to pay him. He threatened to ruin her credit and destroy any chance of her being able to rent on her own. As Sullivan points out, “What does anyone of that age know about finances?”
According to Gonzales-McLinn, six months into her stay with him, Sasko began raping her. In her clemency petition, submitted in 2022, documents state that, “Shortly after their first sexual encounter, Mr. Sasko let Ms. McLinn know that she would have to pay rent and reimburse him for food, gas, cell phone, car repairs and her dog’s veterinary bill.” Prior to the threats, Gonzales-McLinn allowed Sasko to finance a rhinoplasty she had wanted for some time, and after the surgery, Sasko informed her that the $6,000 bill had been added to her “tab.” He then spent months demanding she undergo breast augmentation, as “men like curvy women.” When it was determined she was too young for the procedure, she was coerced into having gluteal implants instead. “This kind of remaking of her body I see as another method of control,” Sullivan says. Sasko then added the $10,000 cost of this surgery to the tab. Gonzales-McLinn stated in a session with Dr. Hutchison that when she relented to Sasko’s demands for sexual gratification, his threats would dissipate for a time before this cycle ultimately began again. Gonzales-McLinn’s clemency petition comments on this, stating “Sex trafficking […] includes men exploiting women for their own gratification.”
While Gonzales-McLinn was employed at times during her roughly year-and-a-half stay with Sasko, her checks were seized by Sasko, whose businesses were nearing total financial collapse, and deposited into a Cici’s Pizza account to which Gonzales-McLinn had no access. Sternberg estimates Gonzales-McLinn’s “tab” to have been around $14,000 at the time of Sasko’s death. However, Gonzales-McLinn later testified that her bill surpassed $17,000. During this time, Gonzales-McLinn began displaying signs of obvious mental distress. There have been multiple reports of an incident involving a rabbit that Gonzales-McLinn purchased from a pet store before bringing it to Sasko’s house to kill and eat. While media outlets cited this incident as evidence of Gonzales-McLinn’s murderous ideation, Gonzales-McLinn testified that Sasko was a “prepper,” meaning that he believed the world was coming to an end. She recalled how Sasko began stock-piling guns, ammunition, knives, water and survival kits. “He talked about how we need to learn how to kill and prepare animals for when we would have no other choice,” she testified. When asked if Sasko had tried to convince her of this worldview, she testified: “Yes, and he was successful. I started to believe it.”
Despite Gonzales-McLinn’s obviously concerning mental decline, Sasko—the man who claimed to be providing Gonzales-McLinn with mentorship and support in these early days of her adulthood—was filling Gonzales-McLinn with cocktails of drugs and alcohol, keeping her virtually immobile. Gonzales-McLinn remembers times where she couldn’t so much as get off the couch for days at a time. Sasko continued raping a drugged and drunk Gonzales-McLinn up to four times a week. Furthermore, Gonzales-McLinn herself recalls drinking into “near blackout” in order to endure the assaults, knowing that each time Sasko began to drink, she would be raped. It was this knowledge that ultimately led to Sasko’s murder.
On the morning of Jan. 14, 2014, Gonzales-McLinn received a text message from Sasko that read:
“Hey good morning, thank you for last night. It was good,
we never got to talk about Sunday. I apologize for trying
to sleep with you. Tonight, before we get going can we talk?
Please and thank you.”
That afternoon, Sasko sent an additional text asking her to put beer in the fridge for him. As Gonzales-McLinn explained to Dr. Hutchison, she interpreted this to mean she would be raped again that night. Shortly before midnight, Gonzales-McLinn drugged and bound Sasko before cutting his throat, killing him and driving to Florida. In one of her psychological evaluations, Gonzales-McLinn is somewhat famously quoted as having said that the feeling of killing Sasko “was like standing in the sun for the first time.”
Post-Conviction Evidentiary Hearing
Throughout 2014 and 2015, media outlets depicted Gonzales-McLinn as a volatile housemate of Sasko who killed Sasko cold-bloodedly, her actions motivated by insidious ideation of murder. The Wichita Eagle published an article in 2014 with claims that Gonzales-McLinn killed Sasko because she “wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone.” People published an article with the headline “Teen Charged with Killing Pizza Shop Boss Who Tried to Steer Her from Gangs.” In 2015, Fox 4 News classified the relationship between Sasko and Gonzales-McLinn as “roommates” and referred to the state of Sasko’s body as “butchered.” It should be noted that there has never been any court documentation that Gonzales-McLinn was associated with gangs.
Across news outlets, cozy portraits of Sasko with an ex-girlfriend were paired alongside sinister images of Gonzales-McLinn smirking. This same ex-girlfriend was even quoted saying that Sasko “generously helped many of his employees.” The efforts that went into humanizing Sasko were staggering, with little to no acknowledgement in these early articles that Sasko’s relationship with Gonzales-McLinn was anything but a fatherly figure attempting to help a young, lost soul. It’s been speculated in years since Gonzales-McLinn’s conviction that the violence of the killing led detectives, the jury and members of the public to view Gonzales-McLinn as bloodthirsty. However, in light of a 2019–2020 evidentiary hearing, the true nature of Sasko, as well as the events that led to his death, have been made clear.
Six years after Gonzales-McLinn’s conviction, Sternberg presented at an evidentiary hearing that sought to lower Gonzales-McLinn’s sentence from a Hard 50 to a Hard 25 by arguing that her original defense attorney failed to adequately counsel her on the option of a plea bargain. Such a deal would have allowed her to plead guilty for a 25 to life sentence rather than the 50 to life she received at trial. This evidentiary hearing was the first time Gonzales-McLinn ever took the stand, and this was also the first time that any testimony regarding Sasko’s abusive behavior was allowed in the courtroom.
During this hearing, Gonzales-McLinn testified: “Sometimes I would say that maybe I should just leave, move out […] and [Sasko] said that he’ll get an attorney and he would sue me, and I would never be able to afford my own house or have anything.” When Sternberg questioned her on what she felt her options were, Gonzales-McLinn said: “I feel like I really didn’t have choices. It was just do whatever [Sasko] says.” In reference to the gluteal implants Sasko coerced Gonzales-McLinn into getting, she asserted that, along with being very painful, the implants left her “ashamed and embarrassed.” She testified that, after this surgery and with the $10,000 cost having been added to her growing bill, “[the sexual assault] got worse. To him, I was just his at this point, like he owned me.” When asked if she ever consented to the sexual encounters with Sasko, Gonzales-McLinn testified with a powerful and simple “no.
When Sternberg questioned Gonzales-McLinn on the killing of Sasko, her first-hand account of that night was remembered in pieces. “I remember there was blood on my hands, and I remember just the feeling of, ‘Oh my God,’” Gonzales-McLinn said. “I remember being in the car and driving. And I remember I was so exhausted at one point that I just stopped the car, and I was still in Kansas, and it was cold. I was shaking because it was so cold, and I decided to drive south where it was warm.” In the prosecution’s cross-examination, while Gonzales-McLinn was questioned on the effectiveness of Cornwell as her counsel, she was not questioned on her testimony regarding Sasko.
In 2021, Kansas Reflector editor Sherman Smith secured the first and only interview with Gonzales-McLinn since the events of 2014. In this interview, Gonzales-McLinn recalled that during her trial, Cornwell didn’t prepare her for the possibility of spending the rest of her life in prison. She claimed that Cornwell had a mentality of, “this is going to be fine.” In transcripts of the cross-examination of Gonzales-McLinn during her evidentiary hearing, she testified that “[Cornwell] would talk about normal things, his family, a lot, just other things that he has dealt with before.” Because of Cornwell’s soothing attitude, and at the assurance of her family, Gonzales-McLinn was unaware of the real possibility that evidence presented at trial would not indicate she had experienced over a year of sexual and financial abuse from Sasko. “Don’t worry about it because we’re going to win—that was kind of [Cornwell’s] theme, his repeated theme,” said Gonzales-McLinn, 28 at the time.
In May of 2020, Judge Amy Hanley ruled in Gonzels-McLinn’s favor, and her sentence was reduced to 25 years to life, in a plea-like agreement that means Gonzales-McLinn has given up the majority of her rights to appeal. She may never appeal for a new trial. Her earliest possible release date is listed by the Topeka Correctional Facility as Feb. 1, 2039, when she will be 44 years old.
Fight for Clemency
Retired journalist and current volunteer at Topeka Correctional Facility, Dave Ranney has become a prominent advocate for Gonzales-McLinn in the years following her conviction. The Topeka Correctional Facility offers a creative writing course through which Ranney and fellow advocate Sharon Sullivan were first introduced to Gonzales-McLinn. “Dave was really the driver of [petitioning for clemency],” Sullivan says.
Gonzales-McLinn’s petition for clemency took roughly a year to put together and was submitted in November 2022 to the Kansas Prisoner Review Board. “One of the points, if not the main point, of the application [was] how do we define justice for an individual—in this case a sex-trafficked 19-year-old female—who kills her serial rapist,” Ranney says. The clemency application is undersigned by 32 individuals including medical professionals, family members and friends, concerned Lawrence residents and even members of law enforcement themselves.
In the petition, the undersigned assert: “There is ample evidence that Sarah, who had moved in with Mr. Sasko when she was 17, was groomed, sex trafficked and sexually assaulted for almost a year. Unfortunately, her trial focused on whether her mental condition, dissociative identity disorder, prevented her from forming criminal intent. The judge blocked Sarah’s attorney from questioning Mr. Sasko’s character.”
Utilizing over a dozen exhibits, letters and evaluation documents, the petition argues that Sasko’s actions are what ultimately led to his death and that Gonzales-McLinn acted in self-defense, seeing no other means of self-preservation due to her history of sexual assault and mental illnesses. In support of this argument, the application includes findings from evidentiary files that document Judge Martin’s suppression of any evidence of Sasko’s sexual or abusive behavior, Sasko’s repeated interest in “rape fantasy” pornography and numerous testimonies from associates of Sasko claiming his behavior was habitually indecent and “sick.” The application also asserts that Sasko’s threats of financial ruin and homelessness would stop when Gonzales-McLinn submitted to his demands for sexual encounters.
One of the requirements of a clemency petition is a plan for the incarcerated individual should they be released. Gonzales-McLinn’s advocacy team has planned for her to enter a two-year-long program at a home for survivors of sex trafficking. In addition, the applicant must provide a statement to their progress during their time incarcerated. In her now almost 10 years of incarceration, Gonzales-McLinn has undertaken the Pell Associate of Arts-Liberal Studies, as well as money management and dental assistant programs. Sullivan, who in addition to being an advocate was also Gonzales-McLinn’s instructor for Intro to Women’s Studies online at Washburn University, describes her as “very articulate, very smart, very thoughtful. To me, it emphasizes the ways that this woman was exploited.”
Additionally, Gonzales-McLinn has worked as a member of Reaching Out From Within, aiming to counteract violence by speaking to high school and college students, and she now works as a dog trainer within the Pooches and Pals program at TCF.
Gonzales-McLinn, now a sober woman of faith, asserts in her clemency petition: “I wish that I could find the words to better describe how I feel, but I can’t, because they don’t exist.
“I can only say that when I moved into that house, I never anticipated the things that would occur. I was young and did not know how to handle situations that would quickly come my way. I believed to my very core that I was alone, that no one cared […] that there was no help for me and there was no way out. Sorrow is now a part of my everyday life. For all our sakes, I wish I had known how to unscramble my thoughts and be the woman that God intended me to be. God knows that I would if I could.”
The Prisoner Review Board in the state of Kansas, established in 2015, received 84 applications for clemency in its first four years of operation. The board is allotted 120 days to submit their recommendations before passing applications on to the governor, who ultimately has the authority to grant or deny any applicant. Eight applications were recommended favorably between 2017 and 2018, and Gov. Laura Kelly granted clemency to eight prisoners in 2021—though due to privacy laws, there’s no way to be sure if these are the same eight individuals. Of the incarcerated individuals to whom Kelly has granted clemency, none were incarcerated due to violent crimes. This makes Gonzales-McLinn’s case all the more difficult to pass. The governor received Gonzales-McLinn’s application in March of 2023. In a press release on the governor’s site, Kelly said, “Using the clemency power is not something I take lightly, nor is it the solution to the systemic issues in our criminal justice system.”
The Bigger Picture
As human trafficking trainer Nash states, sex trafficking is a massively underreported crime. “I do a thing early on [in training] where I ask, ‘What would you do?’ And you have all these officers going, ‘I don’t know what to do with them. I don’t even know what that means.’ And then they come up to you during the breaks going, ‘Oh my God, I’ve totally been missing this. I’ve seen all this. I had all these trafficking victims and I didn’t do anything with them. I don’t know what to do now. I feel horrible.’”
The number of stories Nash tells of officers’ encounters with and failures to intervene in sex trafficking cases are staggering, but they’re not unfamiliar to the seasoned former trooper. Nash tells a story of an encounter he had during his early years patrolling in Missouri where he came across a 20-year-old woman who was with an older man. “I was talking to them trying to figure out what was going on,” Nash says. “I didn’t understand PTSD and trauma-bonding and all the stuff these poor victims go through, so I didn’t know what to do with her, and I ultimately released her along with the gentleman that she was with.” Nash later learned this man was her trafficker. The horror Nash felt when, just a few months later, this same woman committed suicide due to her seemingly inescapable circumstance, was crushing. “For me, that was when I thought, we gotta change what we’re doing,” Nash says. “I had this girl in the palm of my hand. I had an opportunity to help her, but I didn’t know what to do, and now she’s dead in a bathtub at 20 years old.”
When we look at a sex trafficking victim such as Gonzales-McLinn, the toll of failures in justice and law enforcement becomes insurmountable. Gonzales-McLinn spent her formative years abused and captive, and now it is very possible she will spend the majority, if not all, of her adulthood incarcerated. One-third of her life has been spent behind bars. It paints an image of entrapment. As our criminal justice system sits now, there is very little chance for victims of sex trafficking to escape imprisonment of one variety or another. Gonzales-McLinn’s story of abuse and incarceration is more than an isolated failure of our system to protect one victim of sex trafficking crimes. Her story is an example of how the state of Kansas and this country are prepared to handle sex trafficking victims. Gonzales-McLinn’s inability to gain sovereignty, first at the hands of her abuser and now at the hands of the judicial system, is an example to other victims that police are undertrained and ill-informed on the complex mechanisms of sex trafficking. That courts do not hold mercy for a victim’s circumstance, no matter how influential that circumstance has been on their crimes. Gonzales-McLinn’s case serves as evidence that victims are not permitted to obtain, as Gonzales-McLinn wrote in blood the night of Jan. 14, freedom.
Sullivan believes that Gonzales-McLinn is not alone in her experience. “I would like for us to think about this as a human rights issue,” Sullivan says. “Women should have the right to be free from sexual violence. There are more women like [Gonzales-McLinn] sitting behind bars.”
