Stepfather rescues 15-year-old daughter from accused pimps

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FIFE -- Police say that it was at a Motel 6 in Fife that two missing 15-year-old girls were being held and pimped out through an ad on Backpage.com.

Cops say 25-year-old Samuel Miles-Johnson and 24-year-old Joshua Jones set up the entire thing but apparently never imagined one of the girl`s stepfather would find the ad and coming after them.

“He was surfing Backpage just hoping to find something with her on it. Found an ad with his daughter in it, it was a sexually explicit ad, prostitution ad,” Fife police Lt. Tom Thompson said.

Court documents say the unidentified stepfather had a friend pose as a customer and make contact through the sex ad.

Once the friend positively identified the missing teen, the stepfather called police.

Cops then found her and the second missing teen girl in the room.

“These two guys had two 15-year-olds in the room with them that were missing from their parents and they claimed they didn't know anything that was going on,” Lt. Thompson said.

"Most 14- or 15-year-old girls aren't doing this by themselves. They got somebody working with them or working them and it's usually a pimp,” Genesis Project Seattle founder Andy Conner said.

Conner knows the plight of young girls forced into prostitution better than most.

He founded the Genesis Project Seattle to find the girls, get them away from their pimps for good and get their lives back on track.

"Some guys will make these girls go through dozens and dozens of 'dates' in a 24-hour period before they can rest, sleep, eat, so you can imagine the horrific, that kind of lifestyle over a long period of time is going to destroy a very young girl,” Conner said.

Johnson and Jones were both arraigned in Superior Court Tuesday charged with promoting prostitution of a minor.

According to Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist, the girls were arrested; the arrest was in order for them to be processed through Remann Hall -- a support service organization for young girls. They will not be charged, Lindquist said.

Lawmakers in Olympia have been working on legislation to change the way these young girls are treated by the criminal justice system, but right now the top priority from groups like the Genesis Project is to get these girls out of harm’s way and back on track to a normal life.

It can be challenging, but just like that stepfather, they say they will never give up.