NORTH TEXAS — Her local Dallas story made national headlines. Now, the 18-year-old North Richland Hills sex trafficking survivor is ready to discuss every terrifying detail.
“It’s my first birthday home since, like, two years…,” said smiling Natalee Cramer.
She is speaking out for the first time ever, explaining what happened to her in April 2022.
At just 15 years old, she disappeared from a Dallas Mavericks game at the American Airlines Center. She was found 10 days later with traffickers in Oklahoma.
“I can change people’s perspective and make them feel like they have a voice,” Cramer said.
Once afraid and too weak to tell her story, Cramer now wants her voice heard.
“I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. There’s nothing to be afraid of. And it’s so strong, feels so strong saying that,” Cramer said. “I feel so strong saying that. I never would have thought it a year ago. I would have never been here. I would have never thought I could do it. I’m so proud of myself.”
On April 8, 2022, the Mavericks played the Trailblazers at American Airlines Center.
Cramer and her dad sat in section 221 until the then 15-year-old left to go to the bathroom and never returned.
For the next 10 days, her story made headlines all over the country. AAC cameras captured the only clues. She was last seen with two men on surveillance video at the arena.
“I was planning on going to the game but then got anxious… I needed something,” said Cramer.
Cramer says she was struggling with anxiety and addiction to vaping and marijuana.
“So, I just went and I found a male. I was like, ‘Hey, do you smoke?’ And he was like, ‘yeah.’ He asked me who I was with. And I was like, ‘I was with my dad. I don’t know where he’s at, but we can just chill.’”
Cramer says the encounter took a turn in the parking garage.
“I thought he was the only one… and he wasn’t. They had a bag of weed and rolling papers,” said Cramer. “Pretty much once they kind of showed me, I was just shoved in, not thrown in. But I didn’t I didn’t have a choice.”
Cramer says it didn’t take long to know she was in danger. She said she “…wasn’t sober enough to do anything about it. I didn’t know.”
She said the details of that night and the next 10 days are slowly coming back to her. They are very difficult to hear.
Cramer said she was raped three times in the AAC parking garage and then she was driven somewhere else.
“I would say … 20 to 25 minutes away from the American Airlines Center … and they continued to have me smoke marijuana and they raped me again,” said Cramer. “And when I knew I was getting sex trafficked was when the guy, he had a gray hoodie on… I remember he asked me, he said, ‘Can you go take a shower and then put these clothes on so we can go down to the street?’ … I didn’t think of selling my body. None of that.”
Cramer’s parents, desperate for answers, hired a private investigator who, within 24 hours, made a terrifying find. He discovered adult ads online for their daughter. She was being sold in Oklahoma.
Cramer said she does not remember being driven to Oklahoma, but she remembers being there.
When asked why she didn’t find a phone to call for help, she said that part of the story is hard to understand.
“…that’s something that a lot of people will probably be very questionable about,” Cramer said. “There were times that there was a phone, and I could call … I didn’t, it didn’t run through my mind. I was, I was running. I was running for drugs. I was running for all these other reasons.”
Cramer says her family was not number one at that time.
“I was self-sabotaging,” said Cramer. “I was putting myself in positions that I shouldn’t have, but… I just didn’t call. I don’t know why I didn’t call.”
The private investigator alerted Oklahoma City police about the adult ads for Cramer. Ten days after Cramer disappeared from the AAC, an Oklahoma officer found Cramer wandering outside a complex where one of her traffickers would later be arrested.
“I was tired. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to do,” Cramer said. “I was messed up to the point where I would see things that weren’t there … and so, I was just walking at those apartments, just like praying. I was just like, ‘God, please have someone, something, whether it’s a cop, an ambulance, something, a random person on the side of the road.’ I was like, ‘God, I can’t do this … please.’ And, ‘Somebody, please, please save me.’ And not five minutes [later], a cop pulled up next to me and he goes, ‘Are you Natalee Cramer?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I am.’”
Cramer became very emotional, saying her prayers were answered.
“He felt it. God told him, ‘That’s her. Go get her.’ Like, God was there. He was there.”
It’s been two and half years since that night at the AAC, Cramer attributes her escape and recovery to faith, family, therapy, and Gunnar. Gunnar is her dog, who came along not long after she came home and began therapy.
“When I got Gunnar, I was in a manic … every morning he forced me to get out, I had to take him out. I had to feed him,” said Cramer. “He brought that motivation back … he’s a dog. He doesn’t know, but he saved my life completely.”
Cramer said she is lucky to be alive.
“I knew I was going to die. I knew,” said Cramer. “It’s scary to think that it happens every day. But I hope what people take from this is that it’s real. It’s real and it’s hard. And you may not think it will happen to you until it does.”
She has a message for other victims and survivors.
“Don’t give up on yourself. Even if this happens to you, don’t give up on yourself. It will get better. It’s not something to be ashamed of anything. You just have to embrace it and realize it’s not your fault. It’s not!”
Cramer is still recovering, but she’s ready to help others who may be in the same situation she once was.
“I’m not giving up,” said Cramer. “I am going I’m going to continue to speak about it even if that means telling my story 100 times over and over and over and over. It’s not just my story being told. It’s other people’s who aren’t able to tell their story.”
Cramer says she is a 9.5 on a scale of one to 10. She is working on her GED and wants to start veterinarian school She says she’ll be a “10” when that happens.
Cramer and her family started a non-profit foundation. Aisling for Life helps raise support and resources for sexual assault and sex trafficking victims. The Irish word “Aisling” means “dream.”
While several people were convicted in Oklahoma in connection to Cramer’s case, Dallas investigators made an arrest but later dropped the charges against the suspect.
Carla Rockmore has 1.3 million followers on TikTok and her own fashion line, but there was a time when she was just another carpool mom in North Dallas, wondering what happened to her dreams. “It was challenging,” she says. “The guard at school would tell me I couldn’t idle the car in line while waiting to pick up my kids. What are you talking about? It’s 110 degrees!”
A Montreal native, Rockmore enjoyed a globe-trotting early career, leaving fashion school in Toronto for a couture house in Amsterdam. After returning to Canada, she toggled between corporate and boutique gigs, but motherhood meant slowing down. In 2012, her family moved to Dallas so her husband, Michael Stitt, could become CEO of the menswear brand Haggar Clothing, but Rockmore struggled to find industry work in Texas.
Fashion is about transformation, though, and Rockmore underwent a dramatic one. In March 2020, she was in India working to launch her own jewelry line when the pandemic hit, and she had to come home. Frustrated and looking for escape under quarantine, she started making videos in her closet, part practical stylist advice, part creative riff. She was a natural on camera, with her dark spiraling hair and outsize personality, trying on outfits that ranged from classy to wacky. “It was a convergence of my education and talent, my need to be in front of a stage and a void in the market,” she says. She became a social media phenomenon.
Architectural Digest has featured the closet in her Preston Hollow home, a two-story Narnia of color, spangle and swish so expansive it includes a spiral staircase and fireplace. But the real lure of her videos is a 50-something woman taking delight in the art of dressing up. “Our media don’t show us so many examples of women this age who know who they are and clearly like it,” New York Times Magazine said about Rockmore.
Now 58, Rockmore has a line of clothes on her website as well as through QVC. Many of her videos these days feature Ivy, the 21-year-old daughter whose gender transition became part of the tale, bringing new meaning to Rockmore’s TikTok slogan of self-expression through fashion. (Her 24-year-old son, Eli, helps behind the scenes.) I spoke with Rockmore over the phone, where she was as charming as she is in her videos.
“Fashion matters, because it’s a declaration of how you’re feeling without words,” says Carla Rockmore, who has a clothing line on QVC and her own website. Stewart Cohen
This is a first for me. In researching the clothes on your website, I actually bought the wrap shirt dress in marigold. I haven’t even started this interview, and I’m already out $55.
Ooh, you did? I love it! That dress is sort of the ethos of my design, where clothing is your canvas, and jewelry and accessories are your paint. You can dress it up however you want. I think color is one of my fortes, because my mom was a painter. Proportion, color and shape were dinner conversation.
I’m not much of a trend person. I’m more like, “I love it, now I’m going to wear versions of it for the rest of my life.”
How do you describe Dallas to people who have never been here?
Dallas is a strange juxtaposition. On the good side, you have some of the nicest people in the world. Being a Northeastern girl, I was completely floored when I moved to a place where people strike up conversations in line at the coffee shop. I kept looking over my shoulder thinking, What’s happening? What’s the ulterior motive? But it never came. They’re just genuinely nice.
The downside is that every strip mall looks exactly the same. I once got lost driving around a strip mall in Plano because I thought I was in Preston Hollow. Same Chico’s, same Starbucks. And everyone drives everywhere. I once tried to walk a single block, from Elements on Lovers near the Tollway to my chiropractor across the street, and while I was walking along the underpass, a woman pulled over and asked, “Are you OK, dear?” I said, “I’m just walking,” and she looked at me like I’d completely lost my mind.
How do you describe Dallas fashion?
Hidden. There’s incredible fashion here, but it doesn’t announce itself. It’s not going to smack you in the face, and I think that’s because Dallas isn’t a walking city. I’m always floored when I go to Forty Five Ten or to the downtown Neiman’s. Fashion here is a destination. You have to go to the restaurant, the party, the bar, and when you do — you will see it.
And no matter where I am, I could be going to the doctor for a physical, if I’m wearing a great pair of shoes, another woman will inevitably stop me and say, “Those shoes! Where did you get them?” That’s a kind of sisterhood. In New York, nobody ever asks about your shoes.
You went viral for putting outfits together, something others might find frivolous. Can you make the pitch that fashion matters?
Fashion matters, because it’s a declaration of how you’re feeling without words. It’s also a barometer of what’s going on in the world. I find fashion history so fascinating, why certain pieces of clothing were adopted at certain times.
In the 1910s, hobble skirts restricted women’s movement so completely that in cities like New York and Vancouver, they lowered the streetcars to allow women to get in and out. By mid-century, the story had flipped: Cars and fenders echoed the streamlined silhouette of the pencil skirt popularized by Christian Dior. From hoop skirts to hobble hems to pencil skirts, fashion has always shaped how we move, what we build and how the world makes room for us.
The closet gets used as a metaphor for repression, staying “in the closet,” but your closet has been an engine of self-discovery. Eventually, this became true in your own family, too. Can you talk about how Ivy started joining you in the videos?
Ivy was there from the beginning, because I was doing 10-minute videos on YouTube for my girlfriends up in Canada. I had 91 followers, and I was happy about that! The only reason I blew up was because Ivy said, let’s take it down to a minute and put this on TikTok.
Then Ivy came to me crying one day. Actually, we were in the closet. She said, “I don’t think I’m gay. I think I’m trans.” I felt so bad for her, because she said, “I’m so tired of coming out, Mom. I’m so tired of not being who I am.” At that point, I still naively thought it was a choice, and I was so afraid she was choosing a harder path. But I quickly decided, we’re going to support, full-force. About a week later, she and I did our first video together, because I wanted her to feel not only accepted by her family but also pretty, feminine — all those qualities she’d been craving for the first 17 years of her life. I wanted her to catch up to herself.
I thought, I don’t know if there are a lot of other parents in this situation, but maybe the benefit of my platform is we can show a “normal” family — then again, what’s normal? — modeling what it’s like to accept your child no matter who they are. Sometimes I feel like that’s the whole reason I went viral. Not for my fashion, not for my self-expression. For hers.
One person was fatally shot at a West Dallas convenience store Sunday morning, police said.
The Dallas Police Department said just before 2:50 a.m., officers responded to a shooting call at a 7-Eleven, located in the 1800 block of Sylvan Avenue. When they arrived, officers found one person had been shot.
Dallas Fire-Rescue arrived and transported the victim to the hospital, where they died of their injuries.
DPD said the investigation is ongoing and no arrests have been made at this time. The name of the victim has not been released.
SACRAMENTO — For a moment, it appeared as if the Mavericks would ride Cooper Flagg’s explosive third quarter to a miraculous comeback win over the Sacramento Kings.
Momentum shifted in their favor thanks to a trio of 3-pointers by the Mavericks rookie, but Sacramento weathered the storm and ended the period with a 17-9 run to get back into the driver’s seat.
It was just enough for the Kings, who entered with the worst record in the Western Conference, to maintain enough separation to hand the Mavericks a 113-107 loss Saturday evening.
After trailing by as many as 18, the Mavericks cut the deficit to five after Flagg connected on a floater with 1:49 left. However, Dallas allowed Dylan Cardwell to score an easy layup on the other side of the court, which ended any chance of a comeback.
The Mavericks ended the Kings’ season the last time they were at Golden 1 Center in April, when they eliminated Sacramento from the play-in tournament. The stakes weren’t nearly as high, but the crowd fed off of their energy and cheered for every positive play made by the home team.
The Mavericks didn’t have their 3-point shooting struggles on Saturday. They connected on 13 of 26, a significant improvement from their 4-of-14 night in Thursday’s loss to the Warriors. Turnovers were rooted in this loss. The Mavericks coughed the ball up 19 times, which led to 28 points for the Kings.
“We just didn’t come out with great energy,” Flagg said. “Our starter guys gotta be better with that, getting us off to a great start, me included. Obviously, I had a terrible first half. But not a lot of energy for us. We gotta be better coming out ready to play. I think that’s a big part of it.”
Flagg’s third quarter was nearly perfect, but his first half was a reason why Dallas found itself stuck in a double-digit hole. He had four of his five turnovers before halftime and scored just four points without making a field goal.
Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said his message to not just Flagg, but to the entire team that the schedule was no excuse for the lack of effort and attention to detail to start the game. Flagg said the halftime break gave him an opportunity to refocus his mind.
“Just resetting,” Flagg said. “Knowing I just gotta be a lot better and reflecting. Thinking about the way they were guarding certain actions and what I can do to get better. Sometimes, all it takes is somebody saying something or kind of having like a mental reset.”
Dallas built some momentum late in the game, but the final turnover of the game was an offensive foul by PJ Washington with 41.7 seconds left in a situation when the Mavericks could’ve cut the deficit to two or three points. Kidd challenged the call, but was unsuccessful. The officials deemed Washington used his off arm to push DeMar DeRozan.
Washington had 17 points, five rebounds and four blocks, which tied a season-high.
Before the game, Kidd discussed the legacy of Sacramento Kings point guard Russell Westbrook, who could one day find himself in the Hall of Fame.
“Filling up the stat sheet at the age 37, it’s incredible what he’s doing,” Kidd said.
Westbrook was one of the main reasons why the Kings were able to hand the Mavericks their latest loss. The veteran point guard had his fingerprints on every part of the floor, finishing with 21 points, five rebounds and nine assists. Keon Ellis added 21 points on 5 of 10 from beyond the arc. Maxime Raynaud added 19 points and six rebounds.
Saturday marked the Mavericks’ latest test without Anthony Davis, who missed the game with right adductor soreness. Davis played just 10 minutes on Christmas Day before leaving the game in the second quarter. Dallas is now 4-13 this season without Davis in the lineup.
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“Hopefully it’s not long,” Kidd said. “He’s doing better, but we’ll see here in the next couple days of how long he’ll be out.”
Without Davis, Kidd re-inserted Daniel Gafford into the starting lineup, alongside Flagg, Ryan Nembhard, Washington and Max Christie. Naji Marshall, who started the last 12 games, returned to the second unit.
However, with the Mavericks in a 15-point hole at halftime, Kidd started the second half with Marshall instead of Nembhard. Flagg moved to the point guard position, leading to his best shooting quarter of the season.
Kidd was asked about the decision to change his lineup following halftime, citing the group gave the Mavericks an opportunity to get back into the game.
Flagg scored 15 of his 23 points in the third quarter, which was the most points he’s recorded in a quarter this season. He made five of his six shot attempts, all three of his attempts from beyond the arc and both free throws.
“He did not get off to a good start and it happens in this league,” Kidd said. “For a young man like himself, there’s a second half to be played and he got going there. [He had] turnovers early on, but he made the adjustment at halftime and put us a position to get back into the game.”
The Mavericks will return to Sacramento for a rematch on Jan. 6, but they’ll look to rebound first on Monday in Portland in their final game of the calendar year.
X: @MikeACurtis2
Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
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