Deshae Wise rises above 'by the Grace of God'

Grants Pass OR hurdler and sprinter grew up a 'hostage' of human traffickers while her mother was exploited

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Everywhere she goes, Rebecca Bender tells her gripping and heart-breaking story. 

An author and crusader in the national movement against the scourge of human trafficking and modern slavery, the 36-year old recounts a tale of how, as a young single mother, she was coerced, lied to, brainwashed, beaten and exploited – for nearly six horrifying years. 

And when she's done with the story, concluding with her eventual escape from her trafficker in Las Vegas in 2007 -- by grabbing all she could stuff into a suitcase, taking her child by the hand and running -- one of the first questions is consistently the same.

“People want to know, where is that little girl today?” Bender said.

It's the little girl who, by the age of 8, had only known a world cloaked in secrets and shot-through with dysfunction. 

For most of that time, the little girl lived in a five-bedroom mini-mansion in Las Vegas. The trafficker positioned himself as a father-figure for the child while her mom and three other women (and another little boy) lived under his boot heel. The little girl, maybe 5 years old, did a handstand and walked across the floor on her hands. The man reached into his pocket and gave her a $100 bill.

The little girl attended an expensive private school, but she was not allowed to have friends. The school did not know the address where she lived. In the house, a series of Spanish-speaking women tended to her as a "nanny."

There were a few frantic moments, in the middle of the night, when Rebecca hovered over the little girl and tried to wake her quietly and sneak her out of the house.  

“Come on, honey. You have to wake up. We need to go,” the frightened woman would say. 

The little girl, blinking her eyes open, confused, would ask innocently: “What about my toys?”

Other times, the little girl might get picked up by an “aunt” and stay on her couch for two or three days, unknowing that back at the house her mother was holding ice packs to her face to ease the black-and-blue swelling from a beating. 

The little girl, a hostage really, was used for nearly all of those six years as a chess piece to keep Rebecca in check and stuck in the gears of a multi-billion dollar commercial sex industry. According to the Polaris Project, the number of people who are trafficking victims in the U.S. is likely more than 100,000.

Call the cops? Social services will take your baby away and you’ll never see her again. Fail to come home with your nightly quota? Keep in mind, it won't be good for your daughter if you come up short.

“That was the hook that kept in me,” Rebecca said. “If your daughter’s OK, then you’re going to comply.”

For nearly six years, the little girl existed in a lonely bubble, sometimes neglected, surrounded by stress and fear that she didn’t understand.

She was never hit, never abused, never sold.

“It was by the grace of God that Deshae never got hurt,” Rebecca said.

The little girl eventually grew up.

Deshae Wise of Grants Pass is the fastest high school girl in Oregon and is entered in four events at this weekend’s OSAA Track and Field Championships at Eugene’s Hayward Field. 

Wise has a 3.7 grade-point average. She has studied Mandarin Chinese for three years. She can play piano by ear. She is involved in student government. She will graduate and move on this summer to the University of California-Berkeley. 

In the Southern Oregon town of Grants Pass, where her mother was raised, Wise has become one of the stars of her high school. She is best known for her performances on the track, but Wise also started the Grants Pass High chapter of Youth Ending Slavery, an organization geared toward raising awareness for the modern plague of trafficking. 

“A lot of children in a home like I was raised in don’t make it out without being sexually abused or emotionally abused,” Wise said. “I can use my story as an example to say that no matter what you’ve been through, you can use those experiences to push yourself and achieve things no one thought you could.”

Because Wise was so young, and nearly 10 years has come and gone, many of her memories have been either suppressed or lost. 

She was 8, and with her mother during a transitional year in England, before she finally realized that the trafficker was a bad man that they would thankfully never see again. 

She was 12, and by now well-adjusted to normal life in Grants Pass, when her mother told her the whole story. Rebecca had a book, “Roadmap To Redemption,” about to be published. She was beginning to make television appearances and trips out of town to work with the FBI. 

“I couldn’t have Deshae hear it on the local news,” Rebecca said. “I wanted to tell her what really happened. That’s when she cried and said ‘Why did you stay for me? Why wouldn't you leave for me?’”

There are pangs of guilt and remorse that have echoed through the past 10 years, for both of them. 

Rebecca got married had three more children, all daughters. Life is stable and healthy.

Deshae has a limited but consistent relationship with her biological father, who lives on the East coast. He was someone Rebecca knew and dated before her life spiraled out of control. 

Deshae is “the most organized teenager I’ve ever met,” Rebecca said. 

Deshae makes her bed every morning, folds and stacks her clothes in a particular way, and maps out every hour of her day on a planner. She goes from track practice to a part-time job to her homework, and gets everything done.

She is well-aware that she was given a second chance at a full and happy life. She is determined to not waste her opportunities. 

Deshae gravitated toward track and field in the seventh grade. It was an outlet for her competitiveness and her innate drive for perfection.  

Wise made the state finals in the 100-meter hurdles as a freshman and placed fourth. She won the state title last year, as a junior.

This spring, she ranks first in the state in the 100 (11.79), the 200 (24.69), the 100 hurdles (14.30) and is also one of the favorites in the 300 hurdles (44.31). This weekend, she will do the 4x100 relay and skip the 200 because of where it fits on the schedule right before the 300 hurdles.

“Whatever is supposed to happen will happen,” Deshae said. “All I can do is run my race as best as I can. I just want to enjoy my last season of high school track and do my best.”

Earlier this year, in February, Rebecca Bender came to Grants Pass High School and spoke at an assembly about the issue of human trafficking and how to prevent it. 

Another audience sat riveted to Rebecca’s details. 

But the PowerPoint equipment wasn’t working that day, so she had to move on with her story without photos and charts and graphs. 

“Maybe it was a blessing,” Rebecca said. “The whole time I’m telling my story, there were probably a lot of people (listening) who didn’t know that the kid in my story was their state champion.”

Wise didn’t mind one way or the other. Her mother inspires her. The issue is important to her. 

There is preliminary talk in Hollywood that Rebecca’s story could soon become the basis for a television show. Another book is nearly ready for publication.

Just this week Rebecca appeared on an episode of Crime Watch Daily, going undercover in Houston, Texas to expose the problem there. A couple of months back she was on the “Today Show,” discussing the Sherri Papini case. 

“For me, it’s just about helping people,” Rebecca said.  

Deshae is focused on building her future, at Cal and beyond, one day, one race at a time.

In English class earlier this year, the students were asked to write six words about themselves. 

Deshae thought for a moment and began to write:

Against All Odds I Will Shine. 

For more information about this issue, visit the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.

Portrait photography by Miss Angel Photography.