Texas girl who was snatched from Dallas Mavericks game relives horror of being held by traffickers

A Texas girl who was snatched from a Dallas Mavericks game in April 2022 has shared the horrors she endured when she was held by sex traffickers for days on end.

Natalee Cramer, now 18, had attended a basketball game with her father on April 18, 2022 when she left her seat without a cellphone and told her father she was going to the bathroom - though in reality she had an urge to smoke marijuana or drink alcohol, which she used to cope with anxiety, she told WFAA. 

'I just walked around and that's when I caught that guy's eye,' she recounted. 'I told him, "I'm just really looking to smoke. Do you smoke?"'

The man allegedly replied that he did smoke, and had weed in his car.

Cramer was later caught on surveillance footage voluntarily leaving the American Airlines Center with two men. She would not be seen again for another 10 days, when she was found in Oklahoma with a gang of sex traffickers.

The teenager explained that she did not sense any danger when she first spoke with the Mavericks fan who offered her marijuana.

'He told me we would walk back to his car that was parked in the parking lot... in the garage, and that's when the second guy came,' Cramer recounted. 'They told me the weed was just in the car.'

But when she got into the vehicle, Cramer said she was taken to a nearby house, where she was raped.

'It's not like a guy with candy in the back of his van and you just get thrown in the back of the van,' she said. 'It looks like a normal conversation until it's not.

'You don't know you're in danger until you're in the middle of it, and you don't know what to do, and you can't get out. 

'There's no room to judge people because they can't get out.'

Cramer ultimately found herself that night in the parking garage, drugged, as her father, Kyle Morris, frantically searched for her, she told CBS News. 

He reported her missing to a Dallas cop that was working the game that night, but was told he would have to report her as a runaway to the North Richland Hills Police Department - more than 30 miles away - because that's where they lived. 

But Cramer and her family say the Dallas police should have done more, accusing them of not searching for her using evidence from surveillance photos as they deemed her a teenage runaway.

'I think Dallas [police] did horrible, horrible,' she said. 

'I don't agree that people, whether you know, they are in danger's way or not, they're not just runaways. My case is a perfect example of cops not doing their job.

'I was walking around outside when the game ended,' Cramer noted, arguing that the police should have been able to locate her that night.

'When the game ended, everyone was rushing outside. They would have found me. They just didn't look at all,' she said, adding that she remained in Texas - just about 20 minutes from the arena - for three days before she was brought to Oklahoma City.

Eventually, Natalee's parents were referred to a private investigator in Houston, who was able to find online sex ads featuring photos of Natalee within a matter of minutes, and trace them to Oklahoma City.

The private investigator shared what he had found with the Oklahoma City Police Department, and officers started searching for the teenager, whom they later discovered was being held at extended-stay hotels.

A lawsuit the family filed against the companies who own and manage those hotels details surveillance photos of Natalee in the hallways, clearly under the influence of adult men holding assault rifles.

'I was surprised to see a family with small children there, and they looked me in the eyes and could see that all of the people were older than me and still not say anything,' Cramer recounted.

'The dad of these little children looked at me and he couldn't tell at the hotel.'

She went on to say that the man who trafficked her 'had a whole rifle by his side and the family just walked on like nothing happened.'

On the day she was eventually rescued, Cramer said one of the traffickers punched her in the mouth.

'My whole cheek was just scratched. My braces were like inside my cheek,' she said.

Without hope, Cramer started 'just praying to God.' 

'I'm tired. I can't do this anymore. I need someone. Please send someone,' she remembers praying to God before she managed to leave her hotel room and get away from her traffickers.

As she walked outside an apartment complex later that day, a police officer drove by.

'He pulled up next to me, and he's like, "Are you Natalee Cramer?" and I was like "Yes,"' she recounted.

The sex trafficking victim then told the officer she had been raped, and she was taken into the back of a police vehicle with her shoes on the seat next to her.

Eight people were arrested that day - two of whom pleaded guilty to trafficking and child porn charges, according to Dallas Express. 

All were later sentenced to time in prison.

'I felt some guilt,' Cramer admitted. 'I know that there are things I could have done to prevent this, but I know not all of the choices that were made were my choices.

'Part of me felt guilty, but I had to come to the fact that this is my life, and they have ruined my life. I cannot feel sorry for them because they did not feel sorry for me.'

Meanwhile, the Dallas police finally arrested a man last year in connection with the case and charged him with sexual assault of a child.

Officers accused him of luring Natalee from the Mavericks game and assaulting her in Dallas before she was taken to Oklahoma, but a grand jury declined to issue an indictment.

'I was extremely upset,' Cramer's mother, Brooke Morris, told WFAA. 

'Our attorney had additional evidence that he was trying to present to the District Attorney's Office in Dallas, and we were outright told in a nutshell, "thank you for the additional evidence, but we are not going to be presenting to the grand jury again,"' she claimed.

Natalee added that she didn't even get a chance to testify, saying her vivid memory of what happened is enough evidence.

'I can recall all of things they did. All of the thing they were wearing and all of the things they said and did to me.

'All three of them are guilty, and if I could see all three, I would be able to point them out.'

She now says she '100 percent' believes more needs to be done in Texas to investigate and prosecute the suspects.

'My first sex trafficking incident was with the people at the American Airlines Center. That is Dallas' deal,' Cramer argued. 'That is their responsibility that happened in their area.

'That's not Oklahoma's to deal with. I was [trafficked] by Dallas men. Dallas police need to deal with it, not Oklahoma police.' 

But she said she believes her case stands 'at the very end of the line.'

'It doesn't matter to them, but that's why I feel like sharing my story will open people's eyes to this is real,' she told CBS News.

'Cops need to get onto this type of thing and hopefully my story will spread to people who are survivors and people who just want to support because they care.'

Still, the family has had some success, encouraging a change in the way the Dallas Police Department's protocol regarding runaways and starting an organization called Aisling to provide support and resources for survivors of sex trafficking and sexual assault.

'I'm not afraid,' Cramer said of her traffickers. 'I'm not scared of them. I'm not that scared person I was when I was with those people.'

If she had the chance to speak directly to her captors, Cramer said, 'I would say, "Thank you because you made me who I am today.

'You made those things happen in my life that made me stronger, made me be more resilient.

'But I will never, I'll never forgive you and I wish the worst on you 100 percent. I wish the worst on you, but I thank you.'