According to police, two missing teenagers in Stuart, Florida, Kiera Medina and Destiny Souza, were held hostage by a man who lured them to a hotel, had sex with them in exchange for drugs, posted them on the classified advertising website Backpage as prostitutes, then ran over one in his car when he was robbed by a man at gunpoint.
Medina and Souza had been living in a rehab facility prior to the incident, according to WPTV 5.
Avian Jackson, 22, of Lantana, is being held on $72,000 bail at the Palm Beach County Jail on charges of lewd and lascivious battery, two counts of child abuse, and two counts of prostituting minors, according to the Palm Beach Post. The Post reported that on Thursday, Boynton Beach Police found one of the girls who went missing from the Sailfish Splash Water Park after leaving around 2 p.m. on Saturday. Police had received reports that a girl had been struck by a car; the girl, 15, informed police she was one of the two missing teenagers.
The 15-year-old stated that she and her friend were exiting Sailfish Splash Water Park when they saw Jackson blow a kiss at them from his silver Chevrolet Camaro. They accepted a ride to the Suburban Extended Stay Hotel in Stuart, where they had sex with him.
Jackson admitted that he and the girls had sex and did drugs at the hotel, and he said only later did he discover from news reports that they were the missing girls, aged 15 and 16. He told police that they had escaped from a “drug center.” He continued that he photographed them, then posted the pictures on BackPage under “Escort Services.”
The police report stated that the girls were hired to have sex at the Super 8 Motel in Lantana. One girl said that Jackson bought heroin and Ecstasy for the girls in trade for sex, later purchasing red and black hair dye to disguise them.
On Thursday morning, Jackson and the girls drove to buy drugs; Medina exited the car to speak to one man while another man pulled out a gun and robbed Jackson. Jackson then jumped in his car and quickly backed over Medina before rushing away to the motel.
Medina was taken to the Delray Trauma Center’s Intensive Care Unit; KPTV reported she was fighting for her life.
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