BATON ROUGE — A 27-year-old man is behind bars, accused of exploiting a young girl for nearly two years. Investigators believe Tramon Criss began trafficking the teen when she was just 14.
Criss was arrested on April 9 and charged with human trafficking and carnal knowledge of a juvenile
The arrest and the girl’s recovery happened during a completely separate investigation. Baton Rouge Police Detective Zachary Evans told UWK he had been searching for her for more than a year. To protect her identity, UWK is referring to the girl as “Ava.” Evans believes she was about 15 when he first saw her in online ads.
Ava went missing in late 2024, Evans said, but police were not notified for several months.
“I was looking for a totally different child, and then she ended up coming across my radar on some of the commercial sex ads when her missing persons poster got recirculated,” Detective Evans said.
After months of investigative work, officers found her on March 26, 2026, inside a car with several people suspected in a theft. She was taken to a hospital for medical treatment, where Evans finally met her. Now 16, he said she was not happy to interact with police.
“She was very unfriendly with law enforcement. But what was crazy—and I thought was hilarious—was that all of us were super excited to meet her,” Evans said, smiling broadly.
‘You do not get to pick if your kid is the one that ends up getting manipulated’
Evans believes Ava spent much of the time she was missing in and around Baton Rouge, though he suspects she may have been taken to other cities.
“They generally jump from little hot spot cities to hot spot cities anywhere from here to Atlanta, to Houston, to Florida, Mississippi,” he said.
It’s easy to think of human trafficking as a big-city crime. Even Evans, a veteran detective, said he once believed victims were mostly children from poverty or unstable homes. He says that’s often true but not always.
“You do not get to pick if your kid is the one that ends up getting manipulated. They just happen to run across a predator, because a predator is going to do what they’re going to do. They don’t really care where your child came from,” he said. “It doesn’t spare anybody. It doesn’t.”
Evans said the threat—especially online—is growing.
“It’s one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises,” he said, adding that some analyses suggest it could surpass narcotics in the next decade.
“She absolutely believes she’s in complete control”
“There’s no telling which girl who runs away is going to a teenage boyfriend doing typical things and which one is running to an adult man who is profiting off her body,” Evans said.
He said traffickers often make the situation feel like a special relationship.
“Teenage runaways are almost always easily convinced that this person is looking out for their well-being—that they’re kind and great, especially if home life isn’t good,” Evans said. “What they don’t realize, because they’re children, is there’s a second side to that. That adult is going to ask for something in return, whether you agree to it or not.”
Ava and her family described Criss as her boyfriend, according to the arrest warrant.
Evans said that dynamic is not unusual.
“She’s in love,” he said. “She absolutely believes she’s in complete control of the situation and the circumstances. She believes she’s choosing what’s happening. Her cut of whatever money they make, she sees that as just her working.”
Criss’ arrest warrant describes some of that work in detail.
“She had been observed in multiple advertisements on websites for commercial sex sales,” the warrant said. All the ads included pictures of the girl posing in provocative outfits.
The warrant says an examination of Ava’s cellphone uncovered messages indicating Criss was managing her activities. Those messages show Criss “reminding her how much money to collect, which money app to send the payments to, and which photos he preferred to post of her,” according to the warrant.
Police also found Instagram messages exchanged with “interested buyers,” offering her services at an Airline Highway hotel, the warrant states.
For now, Ava is under the supervision of the state Department of Children and Family Services. Evans said he believes she has been placed with relatives.
Evans said meeting Ava at the hospital was the payoff for months of work by investigators and others to find her and get her somewhere safe.
“She hated my guts, but I was so excited to meet her,” he said. “We can address everybody who’s done her wrong in some way, shape or form and give her a path to success. She has access to therapy, medical care and all of that. Even if she continues to hate my guts until she’s 30, that was one of the best moments of my life.”
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