After five grueling weeks in court, the landmark three-jury trial for three people accused of trafficking a 15-year-old girl is now over, with all three found guilty of the nine total counts between them.
“[Jazmin Doe] said from the moment the traffickers took her, they had a cloud of control over her and that she was afraid, even though she pretended to be brave," San Luis Obispo County Deputy District Attorney Kim Dittrich explained.
Dittrich was the main prosecutor during the trial.
"I kept thinking when she was testifying, you would have to be brave to live through something like this,” she said.
Joshua Murphy, Tremaine Jones and Heather Lynne Hunt were all found guilty of human trafficking of a minor for the purpose of sex acts and pimping of a minor under the age of 16, while Murphy was additionally found guilty of possession and distribution of child pornography and committing sex acts on a 15-year-old.
“The realization that the team of people behind this case, behind the prosecution, convinced and proved beyond a reasonable doubt to 36 different individual jurors that all three defendants were guilty, was very monumental,” Dittrich said of the verdict delivered Thursday.
A three-jury trial is rare anywhere, but a first for San Luis Obispo County. It allowed evidence from each defendant's statements to be used against each other.
“We wanted to use that evidence in court and the only way to do that, that would suffice the constitutional restrictions, would be to have three separate juries," District Attorney Dan Dow explained.
For Dow, it’s a huge win for the region in combating human trafficking. Multiple agency partners, including the Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force for SLO County, tracked down the three defendants in January of 2021 in Pismo Beach through Operation Reclaim and Rebuild, an annual anti-human trafficking enforcement operation.
“It sends a message that we will not allow modern-day slavery to happen in our community," Dow said. "If you do and we catch you, we're going to hold you accountable. We're going to go to great lengths, even to holding a jury trial with three juries if it's necessary.”
It was a case that relied on digital evidence, which included many text exchanges linking the victim, Jazmin Doe, with the three traffickers.
Dittrich also explained that Jazmin’s testimony about her experience over 16 days four years ago was what really showed the juries what they needed to find a completely guilty verdict.
“Without Jazmin, I do not think we would have received the verdicts that we received," she said.
All three defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 27 at the San Luis Obispo County Courthouse.
