NORTH TEXAS — Her local story made national headlines. Now, the 18-year-old sex trafficking survivor from North Richland Hills is ready to discuss all the terrifying details.
CBS News Texas
“This is my first birthday at home in about two years,” Natalee Cramer said with a smile.
She speaks out for the first time, explaining what happened to her in April 2022.
At just 15 years old, she disappeared from a Dallas Mavericks game at the American Airlines center. She was found 10 days later with traffickers in Oklahoma.
“I can change people’s perspective and make them feel like they have a voice,” Cramer said.
Once afraid and too weak to tell her story, Cramer now wants her voice to be heard.
“I’m not afraid. I’m not scared. There’s nothing to be afraid of. And it’s so powerful, so powerful to say that,” Cramer said. “I feel so powerful to say that. I never would have thought that a year ago. I never would have been here. I never would have thought I could do this. I’m so proud of myself.”
On April 8, 2022, the Mavericks played the Trailblazers at the American Airlines Center. Cramer and his father sat in Section 221 until the girl, then 15, went to the bathroom and never returned.
For the next ten days, her story made headlines across the country. The AAC’s cameras captured the only clues. She was last seen with two men on surveillance video in the arena.
“I had planned to go to the game, but I started getting anxious… I needed something,” Cramer said.
Cramer said she suffered from anxiety and addiction to vaping and marijuana.
Dallas Police Department
“So I went up to a guy and I asked him, ‘Hey, do you smoke?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ He asked me who I was with. And I said, ‘I was with my dad. I don’t know where he is, but we can relax.’”
Cramer said the encounter took a different turn in the parking lot.
“I thought he was the only one … and he wasn’t. They had a bag of weed and rolling papers,” Cramer said. “Almost once they showed me, they just pushed me in, not threw me in. But I didn’t have a choice.”
Cramer said it didn’t take long for her to realize she was in danger. She added that she was “not sober enough to do anything. I didn’t know that.”
She said the details of that night and the next ten days are slowly coming back to her mind. They are very difficult to hear.
Cramer said she was raped three times in the AAC parking lot and then driven elsewhere.
“I would say…20 or 25 minutes from the American Airlines center…and they kept making me smoke marijuana and they raped me again,” Cramer said. “And the only time I knew I was being sex trafficked was when the guy had a gray hoodie on…I remember him asking me, he said, ‘Can you go take a shower and then put these clothes on so we can go out on the street?’…I didn’t think about selling my body. None of that.”
To burn The parents, desperate for answers, hired a private investigator who, within 24 hours, made a terrifying discovery. He discovered online adult ads for their daughter. She was being sold in Oklahoma.
Cramer said she didn’t remember being driven to Oklahoma, but she did remember being there.
When asked why she couldn’t find a phone to call for help, she said part of the story was difficult to understand.
“It’s something that’s probably going to raise a lot of questions,” Cramer said. “There were times when I had a phone and I could have called. I didn’t, I didn’t think about it. I was running. I was running to get high. I was running for all these other reasons.”
CBS News Texas
Cramer says his family was not a priority at the time.
“I was sabotaging myself,” Cramer said. “I was putting myself in situations I shouldn’t have been in, but … I just didn’t call. I don’t know why I didn’t call.”
The private investigator alerted Oklahoma City police about the adult ads for Cramer. Ten days after Cramer disappeared from the AAC, an Oklahoma police officer found Cramer wandering outside a complex where one of his traffickers would later be arrested.
“I was tired. I didn’t know what to do,” Cramer said. “I was so disturbed that I was seeing things that weren’t there… and so I was walking around these apartments, like I was praying. I was like, ‘God, please send someone, something, whether it’s a police officer, an ambulance, something, some random person on the side of the road.’ I was like, ‘God, I can’t do this… please.’ And ‘Somebody, please, please save me.’ And not five minutes [later]A police officer pulled up next to me and asked, “Are you Natalee Cramer?” And I said, “Yes, that’s me.”
Cramer became very emotional, saying her prayers had been answered.
“He felt it. God said, ‘That’s her. Go get her.’ Like God was there. He was there.”
It’s been two and a half years since that night at the AAC. Cramer credits his escape and recovery to faith, family, therapy and Gunnar. Gunnar is his dog, who arrived shortly after he returned home and began therapy.
“When I got Gunnar, I was in a frenzy … Every morning he would force me to go outside, I had to take him out. I had to feed him,” Cramer said. “He gave me that motivation again. … He’s a dog. He doesn’t know it, but he completely saved my life.”
Cramer said she was lucky to be alive.
“I knew I was going to die. I knew it,” Cramer said. “It’s scary to think that this happens every day. But I hope people take away from this the fact that this is real. This is real and this is hard. And you may not think it’s going to happen to you until it happens.”
She has a message for other victims and survivors.
“Don’t give up. Even if it happens to you, don’t give up. It will get better. It’s not something to be ashamed of. You just have to accept it and realize that it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault!”
Cramer is still recovering, but she’s willing to help others who might find themselves in the same situation as her.
“I’m not giving up,” Cramer said. “I’m going to keep talking about it, even if it means telling my story 100 times over and over again. It’s not just my story that’s being told. It’s other people’s stories that aren’t able to tell theirs.”
Cramer says she has a 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10. She is currently working on her high school diploma and wants to start veterinary school. She says she will have a 10 when that happens.
Cramer and her family have created a nonprofit foundation. Aisling for Life helps raise funds to support and provide resources to survivors of sexual assault and sex trafficking. The Irish word “Aisling” means “dream.”
While several people have been convicted in Oklahoma in connection with Cramer’s case, Dallas Investigators made an arrest but later dropped charges against the suspect.
