Desirrê Freitas Flew In to Help a Friend. Her Passport Went Into a Safe.

For years, Desirrê Freitas paid a spiritual adviser she had found on Instagram to talk through her relationship and her life. In April 2022 the adviser said she was in crisis and needed her. Desirrê flew from Germany to a house outside Austin to help. Within weeks her passport was in a safe and a bill was waiting: the flight, the room, the furniture, and the witchcraft she had been told was protecting her. Then came the nightly target she had to reach before she was allowed back inside.

---

Desirrê Freitas, a Brazilian who had studied in Canada and was living in Germany, traveled to the United States on a tourist visa in April 2022 at the request of Kat Torres, a Brazilian model and online spiritual adviser with a large following and a published book. In a house in the suburbs of Austin, Texas, Desirrê worked shifts of as much as fifteen hours at a strip club and handed her earnings over; bank statements examined by the BBC showed more than twenty-one thousand dollars transferred to Torres in June and July 2022, and Desirrê said she also handed over substantial sums in cash. Another Brazilian woman, Letícia Maia, lived in the same household. Friends and relatives launched the Searching Desirrê campaign in September 2022. In November, police brought the three women to the Franklin County Sheriff's Office in Maine; in December, Desirrê and Letícia returned to Brazil. In July 2024, a Brazilian judge sentenced Kat Torres to eight years in prison for trafficking and enslaving Desirrê, finding that she had lured her to the United States for sexual exploitation. Torres denies the allegations, maintains her innocence and has appealed. Other women's allegations were still being investigated. Desirrê published her own account under the name her friends had used while looking for her.

---

This account is drawn from Desirrê Freitas's interviews with O TEMPO and O Globo, BBC reporting that included her bank statements and a recording made before a police welfare call, the Brazilian podcast A Coach's reporting on Kat Torres's 2017 television appearance, the program Cidade Alerta, and the July 2024 sentencing in Brazil.

---

This episode discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(108)

SERIAL KILLER: Richard Ramirez

In 1985, Richard Ramirez terrorized Los Angeles and San Francisco, attacking strangers in their homes at night and leaving investigators struggling to connect crimes scattered across multiple jurisdic...

15 Okt 44min

SERIAL KILLER: Dennis Lynn Rader

Between 1974 and 1991, Dennis Rader murdered ten people in Wichita, Kansas, taunting police for years under the name BTK before going silent for over a decade. The case remained unsolved for thirty-on...

12 Okt 45min

SERIAL KILLER: John Wayne Gacy

In December 1978, fifteen-year-old Robert Piest disappeared after stepping outside a Des Plaines, Illinois pharmacy to speak with a contractor named John Wayne Gacy. What investigators found beneath t...

10 Okt 44min

SERIAL KILLER: Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer

In 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested at his Milwaukee apartment after seventeen men and boys were killed there over more than a decade, their remains hidden inside ordinary furniture and appliances. T...

9 Okt 44min

SERIAL KILLER: Ted Bundy

Beginning in 1974 and continuing across at least seven states, Ted Bundy abducted and murdered dozens of young women while moving freely through campuses and communities, exploiting his intelligence a...

9 Okt 45min

He Said Madeline Soto Walked Into School. She Was in the Passenger Seat.

Madeline Soto turned thirteen on a Thursday in February 2024, and had her birthday party that Sunday at her grandmother's house. Every morning she texted her closest friend, who woke up to the message...

7 Okt 17min

Baby H's Nanny Was Told the Camera Saved Nothing. There Was a Second.

Months before her due date, Dina went looking for someone who could care for a newborn and a recovering mother as one job. She found a referral on RedNote, called the number, and a woman told her she ...

4 Okt 17min

Manohara Pinot Wrote Two Words on a Napkin in Eyeliner. They Said Help Me.

At sixteen, Manohara Odelia Pinot traveled to Malaysia to meet a prince's parents. During the visit she was told she would be marrying their son that month. She laughed - she thought it was a joke. Th...

1 Okt 18min