Mark Wilson

Child forced into sex trade

Police find terrified girl, 11, working 'kiddie stroll'

Jason Payne, The Province/A street walker plies her trade at Victoria Drive and Franklin Street yesterday.

Shocked police are calling the case of an 11-year-old girl taken from Oregon and forced to sell her body on Vancouver streets the worst they have ever seen.

"Our officers said this was the most horrific case they'd seen and the youngest victim they'd seen," Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Anne Drennan said yesterday after announcing charges against two men and a woman from Portland.

"The statement made by the 11-year-old is the most disturbing I have taken and the wanton disregard shown this child is chilling," said one of the vice cops involved in the arrests. "She was very badly treated while on the streets."

Drennan alleged that the girl's captors forced her to take a cocktail of drugs including LSD and ecstasy so she could work 12 hours a day, and take in $1,000, during the four days she worked the city's notorious "kiddie stroll," where child prostitutes sell sex.

(David Martin) Walker

(Milenda Mae) Carter

(Jabari) McCory

"She was sleep deprived and terrified."

The officers picked up the girl on Saturday after noticing her looking for johns at Franklin Street and Commercial Drive.

She told police she had run away from her foster home in Portland on Feb. 17 and met the accused in a shopping mall.

The group drove to the Canadian border on Feb. 21, telling immigration officers that they were attending a wedding in Vancouver.

Charged with living off the avails of prostitution, abducting a child under 14, exercising control of a minor and contravening immigration regulations are David Martin Walker, 25, Jabari McCory, 26, and Milenda Mae Carter, 24, all of Portland.

McCory is also charged with assault and with sexual interference with a person under 14. Walker faces a count of assault.

Carter, who also worked as a prostitute while in Vancouver, was holding her 18-month-old baby when arrested by police, who lay in wait when three people came to pick up the 11-year-old.

Portland police Lieut. Mike Hefley said the 11-year-old is in state custody in Portland.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is considering laying charges under the Mann Act, which covers crimes committed across state lines, he said. All three accused have U.S. criminal records.

Patricia Feeny, of Oregon's Department of Human Services, said there were no plans to investigate the foster home from which the girl fled.

"We're just glad she was found," she said.