June 4, 2024 • 39 mins
Carly has experienced molestation, prostitution, sex trafficking, addiction, loss, homelessness on Skid Row, and almost every trauma that you could imagine. Her escape and recovery have fueled her radical empathy for the least among us, starting with welcoming the homeless gentleman who appeared in her garden one day. Today, Miss Carly's has fed thousands out of her own home, and most importantly their volunteers walk alongside the homeless, helping 200 people achieve full recoveries and life transformation.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
So I'm digging in my garden and this homeless person
just gets down in the garden beside me and starts digging, and.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Are you serious? Yeah, he picked the right person to
do it next to you. I mean, you get him.
He's probably high as hell, isn't he?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah? He was. And I'm like, you are my people?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This high homeless dude starts digging next to you.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm like, come inside, let's go get something to eat.
He's like, but I'm filthy. I'm like, I don't care.
I'm dirty too. Go wash up and I'll make you
something to eat.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
inner city Memphis. And the last part, somehow it led
to an oscar for the film about our football team.
That movie called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems
(01:04):
will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
in nice suits talking big words that nobody ever uses
on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of
normal folks us, just you and me, deciding, Hey, I
can help. That's what Carly Rice, the voice we just heard,
has done. Why said that Carly gets the homeless, gentleman,
(01:27):
is that she was once homeless herself on the infamous
skid row, and that's only the beginning of her trauma,
which has fueled her radical empathy for the least among us.
Miss Carly started by feeding the homeless in her own home,
has since fed thousands, and, most importantly, their volunteers walk
(01:49):
alongside the homeless and their journeys of recovery and empowerment,
helping two hundred people achieve full recoveries and life transformations.
I cannot wait for you to meet Carly right after
these brief messages from our general sponsors, Carly Rice, good morning,
(02:25):
Good morning. It is so good to see you. Hear
you got in late from Chicago last night.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yes, there's a little bit of turbulence, so they had
taken an alternate route. But we got.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Here, we got here. Well, I am so happy to
welcome you to Memphis, and I'm so appreciative you're joining us.
You're from Rockford, Illinois.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I'm from California, but I came here from Rockford.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, well you're from California, but you now live in Rockford, Illinois,
and you do some really cool stuff there. So before
we get to Miss Carly's and what you do important
and some of this is going to be maybe a
little rough for people to hear your life pre Miss
Carly's and pre Rockford, but definitely without understanding, without understanding
(03:12):
all of that, I do not think that the impact
of Miss Carly's and why you do what you do
and why you do it with the fervor and heart
you do it with is so personal. It matters to
you so much, so your history has to be told.
So tell me where you grew up and how you
grew up.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I appreciate you saying that, because it is important. If
we can't understand why people do the things they do,
then we can't help them. And trauma and our histories
I believe are key to understanding that I grew up
in San Diego, California.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
By the way, hold, I'm trying so hard not to
interrupt my guests, but there are some of these I
wish people were watching as well as they're seeing. Y'all,
I am looking. When you hear the story, you're about
to hear what I want you to keep in your
mind's eyes. I am looking at this bright, big smile,
(04:07):
long black jet black hair in I guess those are
weaved pigtails. What do we call those things? Braided? But
they're pigtails, right, yeah, braided pigtails down to her waist
with this cool black brimmed hat on and these really
groovy black glasses with a black T shirt on that
(04:28):
says fight addiction, not the one addicted, and she's got
both her arms are tatted up that. I am sure
every one of those tattoos has a story behind them.
Definitely someone who is generally embracing life with a with
a with a genuine kindness and kind of light to you.
(04:50):
And that's interesting. So now with people with that mind's eye,
tell us where he came from.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I came from San Diego, and it's a very affluent
area where I was from. But my city, I mean,
my family was kind of like you know when you
have a neighborhood and there's like that family that the
police are always at their house and they have too
much junk on their property and stuff. That was my family.
(05:21):
We were the I guess you could say trashy family.
I know, I'm going to need a Kleenex because I'm
already getting tears in my eyes.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
We will get you out a looks. The producer is
good at two things, making my life miserable and getting
Kleenex for guests. So there you go. Okay, hanky, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I grew up in San Diego, and I actually grew
up in a very affluent area, but my family was troubled,
deeply troubled. There was a lot of mental illness and
drug addiction in my family, and we were ironically also
a close family. So we had like three buildings on
(06:04):
one property, and my grandfather was just my great grandfather
was just an amazing man, and he just kept building
houses on this property and it was overlooking the ocean
and a lagoon, and it was a beautiful place to
grow up. But beautiful things didn't happen in those buildings,
and I suffered through as a child a lot of
(06:27):
neglect and abuse, molestation, all of the bad things that
can happen to a kid happened. And I turned to
drugs at a very young age. I'm not sure when
I started using drugs, but I do know that by
thirteen I was a full blown drug addict doing the
hard stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
What is hard stuff?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I started on meth was my first hard drug at thirteen,
well before thirteen, so somewhere between eleven and thirteen, I
would guess. Things got real heavy.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
When I was eight eight, where was a parent.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Sick, very sick. My mother was very mentally ill. My
grandmother was mentally ill. I won't get into the specifics,
but there was a lot of molestation happening, and the
drugs made it bearable for me to get through that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
It's like a family members by.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Family members by other people, and family members were involved.
It was a really, really sick situation.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Do you have siblings.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I did, but I wasn't with any of them. I
was adopted by my grandmother, who was just a sick woman,
and I lived alone with her, and we lived outside
of San Diego, like on the top of this hill
up a dirt road, and it was one of the
people that harming me was my only neighbor. Well, I
(08:02):
had another neighbor, but they were never home, so it
was like my neighbor was taken advantage of me. My
grandmother's boyfriend was taken advantage of me, and my grandmother
knew about this. And was party to it on top
of that, so there was no safe people for me.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And you you're talking at six and seven and eight
years old.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
This is eight nine years old, and it did happen
before that. I just don't know when it started. And
I didn't have a safe place to go because my
grandma would always keep me home from school and say
that I was sick, and I was actually sick. My
anxiety and my stress came out in physical symptoms. I
had ulcers as an eight year old child, and I
(08:44):
remember just laying in bed in agony with these ulcers
and my esophagus, and it later I found out was
a result of just being under so much duress, you know.
So and then my neighbor was forty something year old
man just pumping me full of methamphetamine so he can
do what he wanted with me, and the drugs gave
(09:04):
me the escape. I learned early on that if I
put the substance in my body, I could get through
whatever was in front of me. And it worked. It
worked until it didn't work.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
That is traumatic. And I've interviewed a lot of people
and I've heard a lot of trauma stories, but the
abuse of a child is just the worst.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
The worst part is when authorities don't believe you, because
there were times that I called the police and my
grandma would just say, Oh, she's lying, she's on drugs,
she's lying. What those police officers, you know, at this time,
maybe I'm thirteen years old, and these police officers that
come to this house see a thirteen year old girl
(09:53):
that's on drugs saying that she's being harmed. I just
wonder till to this day. Sometimes I did those police
officers walk away from that house? Clearly something was going on.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, I wasn't somebody being called.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, we were out in the country, you know. But
I did call the police and they just dismissed the
whole situation. So it's important, I think, for people to
just be aware and when those cries for help are made,
to look into things.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You know, I've heard these stories before, and they typically
lead to the minute you have the ability, you get
out because you have no other choice. Is that what
you did?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, to some extent. Shortly after the time that I
called the police, it was I'll never forget that night
I finally called the police. My grandma's boyfriend was threatening
me with a big knife, and he wanted to do
things to me that hurt really bad, and I didn't
want to do them, and I got really fed up
and I called the police. And a few days after
(10:56):
that situation, my dad came to pick me up, whom
I was at range from all my life. I didn't
know he was my dad. I grew up with my
sister's dad, and here comes my dad and his little
Ford Festiva, and he's high on drugs and he's like
knocking on the door and he's like, hey, are you packed?
And I was like, what are you talking about? And
(11:18):
I had met him prior to this, but we had
no real relationship, you know. And he's like, you're coming
to move with me, aren't you excited? And I was
like news to me. So I had, you know, like
minutes to pack up my whole life. I was thirteen
years old. I'm pounding on my grandma's bedroom door. She
won't answer the door. She's in there, but she won't
(11:39):
answer the door. So I just grab whatever I can
and I go to live with my dad. My dad
was in his addiction at the time, and my other grandma,
whom I call my good grandma, she did her best
to support my dad and newly being a father of
a thirteen year old child, and she helps him with
rant and we got a place together. And I was
(12:01):
going to an alternative school because I was really smart,
but I didn't have great school transfer records because.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I can't imagine why, Yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I didn't go often. So I was like president of
the student government at Mark Twain Junior Senior High School,
which is a continuation school. And I loved school so much.
But then my dad started hanging out with a lot
of my classmates and allowing them to come over and
do drugs at our house. And one day and I
(12:34):
was actually I was flown to Kansas City, Missouri to
be part of the Center for the National Society for
Experiential Education with my principal and one of my teachers
because I was just so active in school and I
was helping write grants and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Did your principals and all know the background of what
you dealt with where you came.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
From, I believe so to some extent, I don't think
they knew that it was again, though they knew my past,
but they didn't know much bad with my dad because
one day I just stopped showing up to school. I
had missed some days of school because my dad he
wasn't coming up with the rent. My grandma would give
him rent money and then he would buy drugs with that.
(13:17):
So I got two jobs. I told I started working
at Save on Drugs and another drug store, and I
told both of them that it was that I was
working only at them. So I had two part time
jobs to make one full time job. And I just
stopped going to school because I had to pay the rent.
And I'll never forget my school librarian, and I believe
(13:41):
it was my principal showed up at the house to
look for me, but I was at work or god
knows where, and they saw my dad and all these
kids in my house high on drugs and stuff, you know,
And I was so mortified that I never went back
to school because now they saw about my home life.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Was like, were you using drugs at that time yourself?
It was still using.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
With my dad, well, right alongside my dad. Like he
would leave me a line, you know, and we didn't
talk about it, but he would leave it on the
mirror for me. And then when I knew he was out,
I would leave him one we didn't use Oh that's.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
A lovely father daught a relationship. Listen, you go out
and do what you gotta do. When you get back,
I'm I have a line set up. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, some families might leave dinner on the table.
You guys were leaving lines for one another. Yeah, and
you were howled.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I was still thirteen, fourteen, maybe fifteen. This is a whole,
like three year period thereabouts. I knew I moved in
with him when I was thirteen, and I think we
kind of held it together for about two years of
not you're going to get evicted, You're not going to
get evicted, You're going to get evicted. We just kept
towing that line. And we lived right on the beach though.
That was one consolation. We found a rent control apartment
(14:58):
right on the beach, so I was kind of into
the idea of staying because it was just such a
beautiful location. And I had made some friends, well friends, yeah,
and I didn't find much trouble in leaving them. Ultimately,
I never missed them a day of my life. But
(15:19):
I eventually got fed up with my dad because he
wasn't paying the rent, and I moved into this apartment.
I can't remember. I think it was like two hundred
dollars a month or one hundred and fifty dollars a month.
But it wasn't an apartment. It was a room about
the size of this, maybe a little bit smaller. And
this Middle Eastern guy and he was actually Persian, I'll
(15:40):
never forget. And he told me that I could have
it for I think one hundred and fifty or two
hundred dollars a month. I just had to have sex
with them every once in a while. That was it,
and I was like, Okay, yay, sounds good. Sign me up.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
I'm excited to announce that we're hosting a live interview
in Memphis on Saturday, July twentieth, and all of you
folks listening that are close join us. It's with Russell Butler,
best known as the Dancing ups Man. Russell once was
(16:28):
close to committing suicide and he'll share his powerful redemption
story which led to this dance ministry that accidentally went viral.
And when I say viral, this guy's got one point
five million followers on TikTok and a million on Instagram.
I'm telling you you'll love hearing his story and you'll
(16:50):
love meeting them, and I'd love to meet you too.
You can learn more and RSVP at Dancing ups Man
dot event bright dot com. Once again, Dancing ups Man
at eventbright dot com. Come on down Saturday, July twentieth.
(17:13):
Listen to the interview. See how it's done, See how
we go back and forth, meet me and meet our guest.
It'd be a good time. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
So I had my own apartment at sixteen years old.
Didn't have a bathroom, but there was a bathroom down
the hall, and I remember I was so messed up
on drugs. I wrote poetry in a circle, starting at
the light of the in the middle of the room,
and it spiraled down all the way around the walls
and it met at the floor, just like That's how
(17:58):
my mind was really cluttered and confused day.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So at sixteen, your rent payment is one hundred and
fifty dollars a month plus occasional sext or version guide Yep, Okay,
that's horrible.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yes, there's a lot of people that take advantage out
there in the world, an awful lot. It gets worse
I have this drug habit.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
You know, am in the drug habit is math at
this point.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
It's still meth at this time. Okay, it's methan. Anything
that I can really get my hands on. I just
didn't want to feel.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Can I ask you a question, Yes, at sixteen, you're
not an adult. I'm not saying anybody's an adult a sixteen,
but at sixteen you're not an adolescent. You're kind of
in that middle ground. I remember being at sixteen, and
while half of the stuff I thought was probably the
most ridiculous, stupid, immature, unexperienced things that you think at sixteen,
(18:57):
but at sixteen you are able to form reasonably cognitive ideas.
When you were sober, what was going on in your mind?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It was never sober.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Never you woke up and did drugs every day.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
There was never.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Method just for breakfast anymore kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, No, there was no sober time. There was no
sober time. The old shim. I was ever sober as
if I was in jail, and I hadn't started going
to jail at this point yet. I didn't luckily start
going to jail until after I was eighteen. I was
never sober.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
So you never were able to take a realistic and
reasonably cognitive look at your stake in life. At this point,
you literally numbed yourself every waking moment to just get
(19:51):
through the day. So sex with the Persian guy, for
rent was just part of the process.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And the beginning, and that's what led me to what
came next, which was prostitution. I got sick of having
just all of the headaches that went along with trying
to get enough drugs. I'm breaking my back, you know,
working these two jobs, and then I get my paycheck
(20:20):
and it's all gone, like right away, and I was like,
there's got to be a better way here. This guy
approached me when I was on the boardwalk in San
Diego and he said I I can help you make
a lot of money. And I was like, okay, sounds good.
What do I do? I mean, you want to talk
about naive? And he said, all you have to do
is bring me homeless people down to this billiards hall
(20:44):
in Tijuana and we'll get them all cleaned up and
we'll pay them too. And you make lots of money,
You make lots of money. So I did it. I
started working with this guy and these people are long gone,
I'm sure. So I I would take these homeless people
down on the train and I would take them to
(21:07):
this billiards hall and I'd meet this guy named TJ.
I believe in Tijuana, yeah, sixteen years old, and I
would essentially sell these homeless people to this guy name
I say, his name was TJ. There's two guys, TJ
and another guy. And they would give me three hundred
dollars ahead. And what they would do is there were
(21:29):
a couple times where I stayed along for the process.
What they do, what they would clean the homeless people up.
They would take them to this hotel and they would
shave them and clean them up. And they would go
to this store called Dorian's and they would get them
like suits or clothes, and they would dress them up
and they would put them in cars way down with
drugs and get them to the border. And I stayed
along for the whole process a couple times, like I said,
(21:50):
And one of the times they asked me to do
it because they said women got through easier. So they
put two kilos of drugs on the front of me
and three kilos of rug drugs on the back of me,
and a big Tommy Hill figure coat and a mini
skirt and high heels. And I just walked right through
the border with these five kilos. I guess it was
(22:13):
probably cocaine or something. I doubt it was pot because
I didn't smell anything. But and then we went to
this house in chew l the Vista and we dumped
all the stuff up. They had a pile about the
size of this room of packages. So they were just
people were coming through the border all day long.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
These are not these are high level cartel people that
you're screwing around with at sixteen years old.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
That's so then they started saying to me, you know,
the women get through easier, Their women get through easier.
You're just start bringing us more women. Because I had bring.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Up how much money did they pay you to be
a mule?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Three hundred dollars a person, not.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
For the people three in there, but what about when
you cross the border.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So I got a thousand dollars plus I got as
much drugs as I wanted. Basically, they would give me
zi pluck gallons of drugs, meth, pot, and I was
on top of the world. I thought, I've just figured out,
you know, supplying to me. Now I have the supply
and I could sell this and I never have to
(23:14):
worry about being able to afford my drugs again, because
the drugs made the feelings go away. The drugs made
the memories of getting you know, heart hurt really bad
go away. So I found it endless to me. It
was like medicine. I found an endless supply of medicine.
So so so I'm bringing these women down there and
(23:35):
they have this like gated community. It's kind of near
the beach, and they literally had like armed guards walking
around like on a on a wall, and the guards
would walk like on the top of the wall, and
there was a little lake.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
None of this ever freaked you out and scared the
hell out of you.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I was so high all the time. No it didn't.
It was cool.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Hey, there's a there's a massive room full of drugs
and armed guys and trapping for you.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Drugs was a screen vista. And now I'm in Tijuana
at this like it's basically like a housing complex that
I think was built to be like a resort town,
and it somehow went and defunct, and they had like
the arm guards walking around on the wall, and I
had a little store I remember outside that had like
just really random items, like some laundry, detergent, like convenience
(24:22):
store stuff, but like just like one of everything or
two of everything. It was so strange. And then inside
they had people living in these houses just high out
of their mind on drugs. There was no running water,
the toilets were full of poop and bee and there's
these people like from America, white people like me, runaways
(24:44):
and homeless people, and they were just like it was
like a holding place until they needed to use them
for something, right, Yeah, And but some of them had
been there for months without any movement, so I don't
know what exactly they were up to the but they
were asking me at that time, bring more women, bring
more women, women, get through faster. And I wasn't seeing
(25:05):
the women come back to the American side. And I
was like, after seeing those armed guards and after seeing
that the women weren't coming back out the other side,
I was like, wait a minute, I don't want to
be one of those women that doesn't come back out
the other side. So I tried to get away from them,
and I did effectively so and I ended up packed
with the Persian guy. So I'm now in downtown San
(25:28):
Diego and I'm living in this makeshift apartment which is
owned by this Persian guy who owns a bunch of
liquor stores. And he's got this big building in downtown
San Diego. And inside the big building were all these
like they were meant to be offices, I'm sure, just
like this, like how you have a big building and
then you have smaller rooms inside the building, except there
(25:50):
was no tops to the rooms, and we were all
living in these like basically what are cubicles. And this
Persian guy was charging us three hundred and fifty dollars
a month. Same deal if you have sex with me
once in a while and I'll give it to you,
you know, for one hundred dollars a month or whatever
he charged me. I don't think he ever charged me anything, actually,
And he had a barbecue place right next door too,
(26:11):
and sometimes I would work at the barbecue place for him,
but mostly he just wanted to have sex with me,
and he would pick me up and he would take
me to his mansion. And he had like this whole
wall of TVs and had all these like Middle Eastern
channels on them and stuff. I don't think he was.
I just think he was like a rich dude. I
don't think he was involved. And like people asked me,
(26:33):
do you think he was a terrorist? I just wasn't
like that at all.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
He was.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
He was really actually kind of a nice guy. But
he was definitely subjugating a lot of people, which is
not okay, and keeping them in abhorrant living conditions in
their disease. You know. So I'm living with this guy
and I'm having my dope dealer come the Persian guy.
I would go to the liquor store and I'd say
I need some money, you know, like give me some money,
(26:58):
and you know, I had for our next date, because
he would give me money every time we dated, like
fifty sixty dollars every time he had sex with me.
And I would go to the liquor store and beg
him for money, and he would want me out of there,
so his wife didn't see me, our family didn't see me.
So he'd always give me money. Right, So I would
call my drug dealer, but not always. Sometimes the security
(27:18):
guys wouldn't even let me in the store to ask
him for the money. So I didn't always have my money,
and the drug dealer came and he said, you know what,
you never have your money, You can't afford your drugs.
Why don't you get off drugs? My drug dealer is
telling me this, and he says, he barely speaks any English,
but he's got this like guy translating for him. He said,
(27:41):
you come to my house. I give you less drugs
every day, you know, be sick. And I said, okay,
sounds good. Let's go, because I mean, it's better than
this disgusting situation I'm in with the Persian guy. And
the apartments, the cubicles we lived in were just filthy, filthy,
and I want it out there so bad because it
was just so dirty, you know, and it was sad
(28:02):
because and this is kind of key to where to
where my story is going to go later. Those other
people in those cubicles, a lot of them are very sick,
people like sick with cancer or COPD or very treatable,
and they just were not getting medical attention. They were
just in this little cubicle living off their social security,
(28:25):
given this Persian guy three hundred and fifty dollars a
month rent, and just doing drugs all day. And they
were like dying in their own filth. And it was
so so sad to see the way that this man
let these people live and profited off of them, knowing
that they needed and deserved better than that situation. And
(28:46):
it never the smell of that place and the sight
of that place never left me.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
So this drug dealer took me home, and I'm like, great, yay,
And instead of giving me less drugs every day, he
gave me more drugs every day. And now I'm basically
like a sex slave for guess what a cartel member.
He is part of the same group of people who
I initially had worked for. I think they were. They
(29:26):
found me again, you know, through my own stupidity. So
now I'm living on the third floor of this four
story apartment complex and I tried many times to get out,
and he just beat the crap out of me. I
had in the beginning of my time with him. You know,
I was very resistant. I wanted out. I didn't want
(29:46):
to be hurt anymore. I didn't want to be raped anymore.
But I learned very early on that I was not
getting out and that the best thing for me to
do was to please this man. So that I would
have opportunity, need to get out so they could earn
his trust.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Who basically get out? I was do you think that's
what happened to the girls that were going to Tijuana
never came back, so they were effectively becoming Tijuana sex
life for the cartel.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
And that's on my conscience because I did take a
couple down there, only a couple, but I always think
about that, like what happened to those girls? You know,
I have no idea to this day, and we'll get
into more of that later. I decided that the only
way out is to convince them I could be like
the best wife ever because.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I pressed wife life. Yeah, so now howdy at this point.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Eighteen I think seventeen eighteen, approbably eighteen. So I'm in
this building and what is what's notable that I like
to tell people that most people would not assume is
it wasn't actually the men who kept me in that building.
So the men had all the third floor apartments and
(30:57):
I don't really know what's on the second floor. The
floor were stolen goods. They had lots of boosters they
would send out to steal things. They were very into
boosting and drug dealing. They washed cars, they like, sent
cars to Tijuana and they came back clean. So I'm
on the third floor. The women and children were on
the first floor. They were the ones that kept me
(31:20):
in that building because if I tried to get out
of that building, they would physically drag me back into
the building, kicking and screaming because their kids were at stake.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
So people will say, so the cartel would say, you
let her out, I'm gonna beat your kids.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It was the old cartels, wives and children and mistresses
and whatnot, and they didn't have a choice. They were
scared for themselves and their children. That's why today when
people say, why doesn't she just run? If she can
come to your house and get condoms, and why doesn't
she just run, You have no idea why she doesn't
just run. There could be a lot of reasons tried
(32:00):
to run, but those women weren't gonna let me out
because they would have killed their children. They absolutely would
have done it too. I would not put it past them.
So I'm in this apartment and there's no phones, there's
no computers. This is like nineteen ninety seven, nineteen ninety eight.
There's no phones of computers. I mean in the apartment
that I'm in. The only way to get out is
(32:20):
to behave, is to earn his trust. Right I had
already tried to scream when we were out on an
outing and it didn't work, So I knew the only
way was to earn his trust and get him to
love me. So now I'm like trying to to seduce
this guy and just be the best little wife he ever.
(32:43):
And I'm telling them things to get at the store,
and I'm cooking them food, and he's teaching me how
to cook Mexican food. Mind you, I didn't speak any
Spanish and he didn't speak any English, so I had
to learn how to speak Spanish just to get the
things I needed. You know, he was very, very like
(33:03):
he in the Latin culture, they really frowned upon drug addiction,
and he was addicted to coke. But he didn't want
any of his people to know that he did. And
I knew that he was, and he took it out
on me. The fact that I knew that he was
addicted to drugs was the most shameful thing in the
world to him, and he would when he would not
(33:25):
do them, he would just beat me to pull. His
favorite thing to do is to beat me with his shoes.
So I just I just kept working to earn his
trust and be a good little wifey. And he used
to take me to a video.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
What is it like to act like to cook dinner
for and seduce a man as if you're a good
wife and love him, when in your heart or heart,
you wish the guy would burn in hell? It's tough.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
It's definitely tough. I had the drugs to help. He
gave me unlimited amounts of black tire heroine. So as
long as he gave me an enough drugs, I could
do it. You know, could I do that sober? I mean,
I'm sure it could, but it would be awful. It
would be awful.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So you were on heroin at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Oh, I've got to tell you.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, graduated from.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah about the time that I started sleeping with the
Persian guy at the store. That's when the heroine you started.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
You're wreck at eighteen, A wreck, a wreck, a wreck. Okay,
So I assume you eventually earned the Scotstrust song.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
I did, and he would take me to the video store.
This is how long ago it was, and eventually, you know,
kept going to the video store and I was like, okay,
this is my time. We always go at night, like
nineteen eleven at night, and believe it or not, it
was pretty busy at that time, so I waited until
it was like the busiest I thought it was ever
going to be. And I and I said, I went
(34:52):
up to the guy at the desk and I was like,
call the police, help me. I'm being held captive, you know,
And he was just like, I'm not doing and then
blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
He thought I was kidding or guess or something. But
by that time Cessa heard me. His name was Cessa,
and he grabbed me and pulled me out of there
by the arm and we and we didn't go back.
I got the wrap beat out of me after that,
and then he made me pull a trade with his friends,
meaning I had to head back to back sex with
(35:26):
like several of his friends. And I'm not in a
comfortable way. It was just the most demoralizing thing.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Ever, So how are you able to talk about this?
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Because my story is not unlike the stories of the
women that I serve. Some of them are worse the
people that the women that we serve, and it.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Has to come for a second. Yeah, I'm so sorry.
Nobody deserves to be treated like that, Carly. That is
absolutely heartbreaking, and I'm I wish I could stop, But
(36:10):
I'm just envisioning this eighteen year old kid who's been
abused for a whole life now dealing with with that.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
It happens every day to it happens every day. There
are some details about my story that are actually different,
that are obviously different, but this kind of stuff happens
to women, the women that I serve, and women all
over this wonderful nation every day.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
We live in our insular, safe worlds. And to know
that this is going on literally right this minute somewhere
in this country, I mean, I can't quit thinking about
it right now. Listen to you. It breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart. I am I cannot believe I'm
(37:01):
sitting three feet across the table from this bright eyed
person living in Rockford. Then we're going to get to
it that they had to succumb to this. I mean,
this is worse than this is. I mean, it's slavery.
(37:24):
It's slavery.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
It is.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
How'd you get away from the sky.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
So one day I was cleaning the apartment and there
was a flip phone in the couch cushion, and I
called the only number I can think of, and it
was an ex boyfriend who was like a film student nerd.
And I said, Neil, come to this address. Do not
call the police. I'm going to jump out the window.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
And third story.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, yeah, I said, I'll probably break my legs. Just
drag me to the car, but I'll.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Be on hero when I won't feel it. Don't worry.
I'll make sure I shoot a really good thing in
borrow before i'm jumped. You're onto being I'm kidding.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
No, that's exactly what I thought, Like, Oh my gosh,
what I thought. I said, just don't call the cops
because the cops were in bed with the cartel guys,
right and no, not right really, oh yeah, absolutely not all.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Of them, but but they had protection there.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah. So that's why I never you know, that's why
my plan was to get citizens. Because there was another
time when I tried at a grocery store, and do
you know, every single person duck and dove from me
at that grocery store, I yelled rape. That was the
second time I tried to get away, I yelled rape.
It is like ten eleven twelve, and we're at a
(38:45):
twenty four hour grocery store. Everybody ran from me, Nobody
came to help me.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Would you look like I'm trying to understand why people
was it that you were out of your mind high
and probably looked like hell when people just thought you
were crazy?
Speaker 1 (38:59):
My face and scabs all over my face.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
That's why I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Think my teeth were falling out yet, but I definitely
had like cavities and stuff. Yeah, yeah, very much. Why
I'm so protective of my people these days.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
And that concludes Part one of my conversation with Carly Rice.
And I'm telling you, guys, you don't want to miss
part two. It's now available to listen to the Redemption.
It's common. Together, guys, we can change the country, but
it's going to start with you. I'll see you in
part two.
So I'm digging in my garden and this homeless person
just gets down in the garden beside me and starts digging, and.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Are you serious? Yeah, he picked the right person to
do it next to you. I mean, you get him.
He's probably high as hell, isn't he?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah? He was. And I'm like, you are my people?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This high homeless dude starts digging next to you.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm like, come inside, let's go get something to eat.
He's like, but I'm filthy. I'm like, I don't care.
I'm dirty too. Go wash up and I'll make you
something to eat.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
inner city Memphis. And the last part, somehow it led
to an oscar for the film about our football team.
That movie called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems
(01:04):
will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
in nice suits talking big words that nobody ever uses
on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of
normal folks us, just you and me, deciding, Hey, I
can help. That's what Carly Rice, the voice we just heard,
has done. Why said that Carly gets the homeless, gentleman,
(01:27):
is that she was once homeless herself on the infamous
skid row, and that's only the beginning of her trauma,
which has fueled her radical empathy for the least among us.
Miss Carly started by feeding the homeless in her own home,
has since fed thousands, and, most importantly, their volunteers walk
(01:49):
alongside the homeless and their journeys of recovery and empowerment,
helping two hundred people achieve full recoveries and life transformations.
I cannot wait for you to meet Carly right after
these brief messages from our general sponsors, Carly Rice, good morning,
(02:25):
Good morning. It is so good to see you. Hear
you got in late from Chicago last night.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yes, there's a little bit of turbulence, so they had
taken an alternate route. But we got.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Here, we got here. Well, I am so happy to
welcome you to Memphis, and I'm so appreciative you're joining us.
You're from Rockford, Illinois.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I'm from California, but I came here from Rockford.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, well you're from California, but you now live in Rockford, Illinois,
and you do some really cool stuff there. So before
we get to Miss Carly's and what you do important
and some of this is going to be maybe a
little rough for people to hear your life pre Miss
Carly's and pre Rockford, but definitely without understanding, without understanding
(03:12):
all of that, I do not think that the impact
of Miss Carly's and why you do what you do
and why you do it with the fervor and heart
you do it with is so personal. It matters to
you so much, so your history has to be told.
So tell me where you grew up and how you
grew up.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I appreciate you saying that, because it is important. If
we can't understand why people do the things they do,
then we can't help them. And trauma and our histories
I believe are key to understanding that I grew up
in San Diego, California.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
By the way, hold, I'm trying so hard not to
interrupt my guests, but there are some of these I
wish people were watching as well as they're seeing. Y'all,
I am looking. When you hear the story, you're about
to hear what I want you to keep in your
mind's eyes. I am looking at this bright, big smile,
(04:07):
long black jet black hair in I guess those are
weaved pigtails. What do we call those things? Braided? But
they're pigtails, right, yeah, braided pigtails down to her waist
with this cool black brimmed hat on and these really
groovy black glasses with a black T shirt on that
(04:28):
says fight addiction, not the one addicted, and she's got
both her arms are tatted up that. I am sure
every one of those tattoos has a story behind them.
Definitely someone who is generally embracing life with a with
a with a genuine kindness and kind of light to you.
(04:50):
And that's interesting. So now with people with that mind's eye,
tell us where he came from.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I came from San Diego, and it's a very affluent
area where I was from. But my city, I mean,
my family was kind of like you know when you
have a neighborhood and there's like that family that the
police are always at their house and they have too
much junk on their property and stuff. That was my family.
(05:21):
We were the I guess you could say trashy family.
I know, I'm going to need a Kleenex because I'm
already getting tears in my eyes.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
We will get you out a looks. The producer is
good at two things, making my life miserable and getting
Kleenex for guests. So there you go. Okay, hanky, okay.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I grew up in San Diego, and I actually grew
up in a very affluent area, but my family was troubled,
deeply troubled. There was a lot of mental illness and
drug addiction in my family, and we were ironically also
a close family. So we had like three buildings on
(06:04):
one property, and my grandfather was just my great grandfather
was just an amazing man, and he just kept building
houses on this property and it was overlooking the ocean
and a lagoon, and it was a beautiful place to
grow up. But beautiful things didn't happen in those buildings,
and I suffered through as a child a lot of
(06:27):
neglect and abuse, molestation, all of the bad things that
can happen to a kid happened. And I turned to
drugs at a very young age. I'm not sure when
I started using drugs, but I do know that by
thirteen I was a full blown drug addict doing the
hard stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
What is hard stuff?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
I started on meth was my first hard drug at thirteen,
well before thirteen, so somewhere between eleven and thirteen, I
would guess. Things got real heavy.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
When I was eight eight, where was a parent.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Sick, very sick. My mother was very mentally ill. My
grandmother was mentally ill. I won't get into the specifics,
but there was a lot of molestation happening, and the
drugs made it bearable for me to get through that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
It's like a family members by.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Family members by other people, and family members were involved.
It was a really, really sick situation.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Do you have siblings.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I did, but I wasn't with any of them. I
was adopted by my grandmother, who was just a sick woman,
and I lived alone with her, and we lived outside
of San Diego, like on the top of this hill
up a dirt road, and it was one of the
people that harming me was my only neighbor. Well, I
(08:02):
had another neighbor, but they were never home, so it
was like my neighbor was taken advantage of me. My
grandmother's boyfriend was taken advantage of me, and my grandmother
knew about this. And was party to it on top
of that, so there was no safe people for me.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
And you you're talking at six and seven and eight
years old.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
This is eight nine years old, and it did happen
before that. I just don't know when it started. And
I didn't have a safe place to go because my
grandma would always keep me home from school and say
that I was sick, and I was actually sick. My
anxiety and my stress came out in physical symptoms. I
had ulcers as an eight year old child, and I
(08:44):
remember just laying in bed in agony with these ulcers
and my esophagus, and it later I found out was
a result of just being under so much duress, you know.
So and then my neighbor was forty something year old
man just pumping me full of methamphetamine so he can
do what he wanted with me, and the drugs gave
(09:04):
me the escape. I learned early on that if I
put the substance in my body, I could get through
whatever was in front of me. And it worked. It
worked until it didn't work.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
That is traumatic. And I've interviewed a lot of people
and I've heard a lot of trauma stories, but the
abuse of a child is just the worst.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
The worst part is when authorities don't believe you, because
there were times that I called the police and my
grandma would just say, Oh, she's lying, she's on drugs,
she's lying. What those police officers, you know, at this time,
maybe I'm thirteen years old, and these police officers that
come to this house see a thirteen year old girl
(09:53):
that's on drugs saying that she's being harmed. I just
wonder till to this day. Sometimes I did those police
officers walk away from that house? Clearly something was going on.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, I wasn't somebody being called.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, we were out in the country, you know. But
I did call the police and they just dismissed the
whole situation. So it's important, I think, for people to
just be aware and when those cries for help are made,
to look into things.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You know, I've heard these stories before, and they typically
lead to the minute you have the ability, you get
out because you have no other choice. Is that what
you did?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, to some extent. Shortly after the time that I
called the police, it was I'll never forget that night
I finally called the police. My grandma's boyfriend was threatening
me with a big knife, and he wanted to do
things to me that hurt really bad, and I didn't
want to do them, and I got really fed up
and I called the police. And a few days after
(10:56):
that situation, my dad came to pick me up, whom
I was at range from all my life. I didn't
know he was my dad. I grew up with my
sister's dad, and here comes my dad and his little
Ford Festiva, and he's high on drugs and he's like
knocking on the door and he's like, hey, are you packed?
And I was like, what are you talking about? And
(11:18):
I had met him prior to this, but we had
no real relationship, you know. And he's like, you're coming
to move with me, aren't you excited? And I was
like news to me. So I had, you know, like
minutes to pack up my whole life. I was thirteen
years old. I'm pounding on my grandma's bedroom door. She
won't answer the door. She's in there, but she won't
(11:39):
answer the door. So I just grab whatever I can
and I go to live with my dad. My dad
was in his addiction at the time, and my other grandma,
whom I call my good grandma, she did her best
to support my dad and newly being a father of
a thirteen year old child, and she helps him with
rant and we got a place together. And I was
(12:01):
going to an alternative school because I was really smart,
but I didn't have great school transfer records because.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I can't imagine why, Yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I didn't go often. So I was like president of
the student government at Mark Twain Junior Senior High School,
which is a continuation school. And I loved school so much.
But then my dad started hanging out with a lot
of my classmates and allowing them to come over and
do drugs at our house. And one day and I
(12:34):
was actually I was flown to Kansas City, Missouri to
be part of the Center for the National Society for
Experiential Education with my principal and one of my teachers
because I was just so active in school and I
was helping write grants and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Did your principals and all know the background of what
you dealt with where you came.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
From, I believe so to some extent, I don't think
they knew that it was again, though they knew my past,
but they didn't know much bad with my dad because
one day I just stopped showing up to school. I
had missed some days of school because my dad he
wasn't coming up with the rent. My grandma would give
him rent money and then he would buy drugs with that.
(13:17):
So I got two jobs. I told I started working
at Save on Drugs and another drug store, and I
told both of them that it was that I was
working only at them. So I had two part time
jobs to make one full time job. And I just
stopped going to school because I had to pay the rent.
And I'll never forget my school librarian, and I believe
(13:41):
it was my principal showed up at the house to
look for me, but I was at work or god
knows where, and they saw my dad and all these
kids in my house high on drugs and stuff, you know,
And I was so mortified that I never went back
to school because now they saw about my home life.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Was like, were you using drugs at that time yourself?
It was still using.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
With my dad, well, right alongside my dad. Like he
would leave me a line, you know, and we didn't
talk about it, but he would leave it on the
mirror for me. And then when I knew he was out,
I would leave him one we didn't use Oh that's.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
A lovely father daught a relationship. Listen, you go out
and do what you gotta do. When you get back,
I'm I have a line set up. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, some families might leave dinner on the table.
You guys were leaving lines for one another. Yeah, and
you were howled.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I was still thirteen, fourteen, maybe fifteen. This is a whole,
like three year period thereabouts. I knew I moved in
with him when I was thirteen, and I think we
kind of held it together for about two years of
not you're going to get evicted, You're not going to
get evicted, You're going to get evicted. We just kept
towing that line. And we lived right on the beach though.
That was one consolation. We found a rent control apartment
(14:58):
right on the beach, so I was kind of into
the idea of staying because it was just such a
beautiful location. And I had made some friends, well friends, yeah,
and I didn't find much trouble in leaving them. Ultimately,
I never missed them a day of my life. But
(15:19):
I eventually got fed up with my dad because he
wasn't paying the rent, and I moved into this apartment.
I can't remember. I think it was like two hundred
dollars a month or one hundred and fifty dollars a month.
But it wasn't an apartment. It was a room about
the size of this, maybe a little bit smaller. And
this Middle Eastern guy and he was actually Persian, I'll
(15:40):
never forget. And he told me that I could have
it for I think one hundred and fifty or two
hundred dollars a month. I just had to have sex
with them every once in a while. That was it,
and I was like, Okay, yay, sounds good. Sign me up.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
I'm excited to announce that we're hosting a live interview
in Memphis on Saturday, July twentieth, and all of you
folks listening that are close join us. It's with Russell Butler,
best known as the Dancing ups Man. Russell once was
(16:28):
close to committing suicide and he'll share his powerful redemption
story which led to this dance ministry that accidentally went viral.
And when I say viral, this guy's got one point
five million followers on TikTok and a million on Instagram.
I'm telling you you'll love hearing his story and you'll
(16:50):
love meeting them, and I'd love to meet you too.
You can learn more and RSVP at Dancing ups Man
dot event bright dot com. Once again, Dancing ups Man
at eventbright dot com. Come on down Saturday, July twentieth.
(17:13):
Listen to the interview. See how it's done, See how
we go back and forth, meet me and meet our guest.
It'd be a good time. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
So I had my own apartment at sixteen years old.
Didn't have a bathroom, but there was a bathroom down
the hall, and I remember I was so messed up
on drugs. I wrote poetry in a circle, starting at
the light of the in the middle of the room,
and it spiraled down all the way around the walls
and it met at the floor, just like That's how
(17:58):
my mind was really cluttered and confused day.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So at sixteen, your rent payment is one hundred and
fifty dollars a month plus occasional sext or version guide Yep, Okay,
that's horrible.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yes, there's a lot of people that take advantage out
there in the world, an awful lot. It gets worse
I have this drug habit.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
You know, am in the drug habit is math at
this point.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
It's still meth at this time. Okay, it's methan. Anything
that I can really get my hands on. I just
didn't want to feel.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Can I ask you a question, Yes, at sixteen, you're
not an adult. I'm not saying anybody's an adult a sixteen,
but at sixteen you're not an adolescent. You're kind of
in that middle ground. I remember being at sixteen, and
while half of the stuff I thought was probably the
most ridiculous, stupid, immature, unexperienced things that you think at sixteen,
(18:57):
but at sixteen you are able to form reasonably cognitive ideas.
When you were sober, what was going on in your mind?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It was never sober.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Never you woke up and did drugs every day.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
There was never.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Method just for breakfast anymore kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, No, there was no sober time. There was no
sober time. The old shim. I was ever sober as
if I was in jail, and I hadn't started going
to jail at this point yet. I didn't luckily start
going to jail until after I was eighteen. I was
never sober.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
So you never were able to take a realistic and
reasonably cognitive look at your stake in life. At this point,
you literally numbed yourself every waking moment to just get
(19:51):
through the day. So sex with the Persian guy, for
rent was just part of the process.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And the beginning, and that's what led me to what
came next, which was prostitution. I got sick of having
just all of the headaches that went along with trying
to get enough drugs. I'm breaking my back, you know,
working these two jobs, and then I get my paycheck
(20:20):
and it's all gone, like right away, and I was like,
there's got to be a better way here. This guy
approached me when I was on the boardwalk in San
Diego and he said I I can help you make
a lot of money. And I was like, okay, sounds good.
What do I do? I mean, you want to talk
about naive? And he said, all you have to do
is bring me homeless people down to this billiards hall
(20:44):
in Tijuana and we'll get them all cleaned up and
we'll pay them too. And you make lots of money,
You make lots of money. So I did it. I
started working with this guy and these people are long gone,
I'm sure. So I I would take these homeless people
down on the train and I would take them to
(21:07):
this billiards hall and I'd meet this guy named TJ.
I believe in Tijuana, yeah, sixteen years old, and I
would essentially sell these homeless people to this guy name
I say, his name was TJ. There's two guys, TJ
and another guy. And they would give me three hundred
dollars ahead. And what they would do is there were
(21:29):
a couple times where I stayed along for the process.
What they do, what they would clean the homeless people up.
They would take them to this hotel and they would
shave them and clean them up. And they would go
to this store called Dorian's and they would get them
like suits or clothes, and they would dress them up
and they would put them in cars way down with
drugs and get them to the border. And I stayed
along for the whole process a couple times, like I said,
(21:50):
And one of the times they asked me to do
it because they said women got through easier. So they
put two kilos of drugs on the front of me
and three kilos of rug drugs on the back of me,
and a big Tommy Hill figure coat and a mini
skirt and high heels. And I just walked right through
the border with these five kilos. I guess it was
(22:13):
probably cocaine or something. I doubt it was pot because
I didn't smell anything. But and then we went to
this house in chew l the Vista and we dumped
all the stuff up. They had a pile about the
size of this room of packages. So they were just
people were coming through the border all day long.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
These are not these are high level cartel people that
you're screwing around with at sixteen years old.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
That's so then they started saying to me, you know,
the women get through easier, Their women get through easier.
You're just start bringing us more women. Because I had bring.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Up how much money did they pay you to be
a mule?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Three hundred dollars a person, not.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
For the people three in there, but what about when
you cross the border.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So I got a thousand dollars plus I got as
much drugs as I wanted. Basically, they would give me
zi pluck gallons of drugs, meth, pot, and I was
on top of the world. I thought, I've just figured out,
you know, supplying to me. Now I have the supply
and I could sell this and I never have to
(23:14):
worry about being able to afford my drugs again, because
the drugs made the feelings go away. The drugs made
the memories of getting you know, heart hurt really bad
go away. So I found it endless to me. It
was like medicine. I found an endless supply of medicine.
So so so I'm bringing these women down there and
(23:35):
they have this like gated community. It's kind of near
the beach, and they literally had like armed guards walking
around like on a on a wall, and the guards
would walk like on the top of the wall, and
there was a little lake.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
None of this ever freaked you out and scared the
hell out of you.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I was so high all the time. No it didn't.
It was cool.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Hey, there's a there's a massive room full of drugs
and armed guys and trapping for you.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Drugs was a screen vista. And now I'm in Tijuana
at this like it's basically like a housing complex that
I think was built to be like a resort town,
and it somehow went and defunct, and they had like
the arm guards walking around on the wall, and I
had a little store I remember outside that had like
just really random items, like some laundry, detergent, like convenience
(24:22):
store stuff, but like just like one of everything or
two of everything. It was so strange. And then inside
they had people living in these houses just high out
of their mind on drugs. There was no running water,
the toilets were full of poop and bee and there's
these people like from America, white people like me, runaways
(24:44):
and homeless people, and they were just like it was
like a holding place until they needed to use them
for something, right, Yeah, And but some of them had
been there for months without any movement, so I don't
know what exactly they were up to the but they
were asking me at that time, bring more women, bring
more women, women, get through faster. And I wasn't seeing
(25:05):
the women come back to the American side. And I
was like, after seeing those armed guards and after seeing
that the women weren't coming back out the other side,
I was like, wait a minute, I don't want to
be one of those women that doesn't come back out
the other side. So I tried to get away from them,
and I did effectively so and I ended up packed
with the Persian guy. So I'm now in downtown San
(25:28):
Diego and I'm living in this makeshift apartment which is
owned by this Persian guy who owns a bunch of
liquor stores. And he's got this big building in downtown
San Diego. And inside the big building were all these
like they were meant to be offices, I'm sure, just
like this, like how you have a big building and
then you have smaller rooms inside the building, except there
(25:50):
was no tops to the rooms, and we were all
living in these like basically what are cubicles. And this
Persian guy was charging us three hundred and fifty dollars
a month. Same deal if you have sex with me
once in a while and I'll give it to you,
you know, for one hundred dollars a month or whatever
he charged me. I don't think he ever charged me anything, actually,
And he had a barbecue place right next door too,
(26:11):
and sometimes I would work at the barbecue place for him,
but mostly he just wanted to have sex with me,
and he would pick me up and he would take
me to his mansion. And he had like this whole
wall of TVs and had all these like Middle Eastern
channels on them and stuff. I don't think he was.
I just think he was like a rich dude. I
don't think he was involved. And like people asked me,
(26:33):
do you think he was a terrorist? I just wasn't
like that at all.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
He was.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
He was really actually kind of a nice guy. But
he was definitely subjugating a lot of people, which is
not okay, and keeping them in abhorrant living conditions in
their disease. You know. So I'm living with this guy
and I'm having my dope dealer come the Persian guy.
I would go to the liquor store and I'd say
I need some money, you know, like give me some money,
(26:58):
and you know, I had for our next date, because
he would give me money every time we dated, like
fifty sixty dollars every time he had sex with me.
And I would go to the liquor store and beg
him for money, and he would want me out of there,
so his wife didn't see me, our family didn't see me.
So he'd always give me money. Right, So I would
call my drug dealer, but not always. Sometimes the security
(27:18):
guys wouldn't even let me in the store to ask
him for the money. So I didn't always have my money,
and the drug dealer came and he said, you know what,
you never have your money, You can't afford your drugs.
Why don't you get off drugs? My drug dealer is
telling me this, and he says, he barely speaks any English,
but he's got this like guy translating for him. He said,
(27:41):
you come to my house. I give you less drugs
every day, you know, be sick. And I said, okay,
sounds good. Let's go, because I mean, it's better than
this disgusting situation I'm in with the Persian guy. And
the apartments, the cubicles we lived in were just filthy, filthy,
and I want it out there so bad because it
was just so dirty, you know, and it was sad
(28:02):
because and this is kind of key to where to
where my story is going to go later. Those other
people in those cubicles, a lot of them are very sick,
people like sick with cancer or COPD or very treatable,
and they just were not getting medical attention. They were
just in this little cubicle living off their social security,
(28:25):
given this Persian guy three hundred and fifty dollars a
month rent, and just doing drugs all day. And they
were like dying in their own filth. And it was
so so sad to see the way that this man
let these people live and profited off of them, knowing
that they needed and deserved better than that situation. And
(28:46):
it never the smell of that place and the sight
of that place never left me.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
So this drug dealer took me home, and I'm like, great, yay,
And instead of giving me less drugs every day, he
gave me more drugs every day. And now I'm basically
like a sex slave for guess what a cartel member.
He is part of the same group of people who
I initially had worked for. I think they were. They
(29:26):
found me again, you know, through my own stupidity. So
now I'm living on the third floor of this four
story apartment complex and I tried many times to get out,
and he just beat the crap out of me. I
had in the beginning of my time with him. You know,
I was very resistant. I wanted out. I didn't want
(29:46):
to be hurt anymore. I didn't want to be raped anymore.
But I learned very early on that I was not
getting out and that the best thing for me to
do was to please this man. So that I would
have opportunity, need to get out so they could earn
his trust.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Who basically get out? I was do you think that's
what happened to the girls that were going to Tijuana
never came back, so they were effectively becoming Tijuana sex
life for the cartel.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
And that's on my conscience because I did take a
couple down there, only a couple, but I always think
about that, like what happened to those girls? You know,
I have no idea to this day, and we'll get
into more of that later. I decided that the only
way out is to convince them I could be like
the best wife ever because.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I pressed wife life. Yeah, so now howdy at this point.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Eighteen I think seventeen eighteen, approbably eighteen. So I'm in
this building and what is what's notable that I like
to tell people that most people would not assume is
it wasn't actually the men who kept me in that building.
So the men had all the third floor apartments and
(30:57):
I don't really know what's on the second floor. The
floor were stolen goods. They had lots of boosters they
would send out to steal things. They were very into
boosting and drug dealing. They washed cars, they like, sent
cars to Tijuana and they came back clean. So I'm
on the third floor. The women and children were on
the first floor. They were the ones that kept me
(31:20):
in that building because if I tried to get out
of that building, they would physically drag me back into
the building, kicking and screaming because their kids were at stake.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
So people will say, so the cartel would say, you
let her out, I'm gonna beat your kids.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
It was the old cartels, wives and children and mistresses
and whatnot, and they didn't have a choice. They were
scared for themselves and their children. That's why today when
people say, why doesn't she just run? If she can
come to your house and get condoms, and why doesn't
she just run, You have no idea why she doesn't
just run. There could be a lot of reasons tried
(32:00):
to run, but those women weren't gonna let me out
because they would have killed their children. They absolutely would
have done it too. I would not put it past them.
So I'm in this apartment and there's no phones, there's
no computers. This is like nineteen ninety seven, nineteen ninety eight.
There's no phones of computers. I mean in the apartment
that I'm in. The only way to get out is
(32:20):
to behave, is to earn his trust. Right I had
already tried to scream when we were out on an
outing and it didn't work, So I knew the only
way was to earn his trust and get him to
love me. So now I'm like trying to to seduce
this guy and just be the best little wife he ever.
(32:43):
And I'm telling them things to get at the store,
and I'm cooking them food, and he's teaching me how
to cook Mexican food. Mind you, I didn't speak any
Spanish and he didn't speak any English, so I had
to learn how to speak Spanish just to get the
things I needed. You know, he was very, very like
(33:03):
he in the Latin culture, they really frowned upon drug addiction,
and he was addicted to coke. But he didn't want
any of his people to know that he did. And
I knew that he was, and he took it out
on me. The fact that I knew that he was
addicted to drugs was the most shameful thing in the
world to him, and he would when he would not
(33:25):
do them, he would just beat me to pull. His
favorite thing to do is to beat me with his shoes.
So I just I just kept working to earn his
trust and be a good little wifey. And he used
to take me to a video.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
What is it like to act like to cook dinner
for and seduce a man as if you're a good
wife and love him, when in your heart or heart,
you wish the guy would burn in hell? It's tough.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
It's definitely tough. I had the drugs to help. He
gave me unlimited amounts of black tire heroine. So as
long as he gave me an enough drugs, I could
do it. You know, could I do that sober? I mean,
I'm sure it could, but it would be awful. It
would be awful.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So you were on heroin at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Oh, I've got to tell you.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, graduated from.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah about the time that I started sleeping with the
Persian guy at the store. That's when the heroine you started.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
You're wreck at eighteen, A wreck, a wreck, a wreck. Okay,
So I assume you eventually earned the Scotstrust song.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
I did, and he would take me to the video store.
This is how long ago it was, and eventually, you know,
kept going to the video store and I was like, okay,
this is my time. We always go at night, like
nineteen eleven at night, and believe it or not, it
was pretty busy at that time, so I waited until
it was like the busiest I thought it was ever
going to be. And I and I said, I went
(34:52):
up to the guy at the desk and I was like,
call the police, help me. I'm being held captive, you know,
And he was just like, I'm not doing and then
blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And are you kidding?
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
He thought I was kidding or guess or something. But
by that time Cessa heard me. His name was Cessa,
and he grabbed me and pulled me out of there
by the arm and we and we didn't go back.
I got the wrap beat out of me after that,
and then he made me pull a trade with his friends,
meaning I had to head back to back sex with
(35:26):
like several of his friends. And I'm not in a
comfortable way. It was just the most demoralizing thing.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Ever, So how are you able to talk about this?
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Because my story is not unlike the stories of the
women that I serve. Some of them are worse the
people that the women that we serve, and it.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Has to come for a second. Yeah, I'm so sorry.
Nobody deserves to be treated like that, Carly. That is
absolutely heartbreaking, and I'm I wish I could stop, But
(36:10):
I'm just envisioning this eighteen year old kid who's been
abused for a whole life now dealing with with that.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
It happens every day to it happens every day. There
are some details about my story that are actually different,
that are obviously different, but this kind of stuff happens
to women, the women that I serve, and women all
over this wonderful nation every day.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
We live in our insular, safe worlds. And to know
that this is going on literally right this minute somewhere
in this country, I mean, I can't quit thinking about
it right now. Listen to you. It breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart. I am I cannot believe I'm
(37:01):
sitting three feet across the table from this bright eyed
person living in Rockford. Then we're going to get to
it that they had to succumb to this. I mean,
this is worse than this is. I mean, it's slavery.
(37:24):
It's slavery.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
It is.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
How'd you get away from the sky.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
So one day I was cleaning the apartment and there
was a flip phone in the couch cushion, and I
called the only number I can think of, and it
was an ex boyfriend who was like a film student nerd.
And I said, Neil, come to this address. Do not
call the police. I'm going to jump out the window.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
And third story.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, yeah, I said, I'll probably break my legs. Just
drag me to the car, but I'll.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Be on hero when I won't feel it. Don't worry.
I'll make sure I shoot a really good thing in
borrow before i'm jumped. You're onto being I'm kidding.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
No, that's exactly what I thought, Like, Oh my gosh,
what I thought. I said, just don't call the cops
because the cops were in bed with the cartel guys,
right and no, not right really, oh yeah, absolutely not all.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Of them, but but they had protection there.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Yeah. So that's why I never you know, that's why
my plan was to get citizens. Because there was another
time when I tried at a grocery store, and do
you know, every single person duck and dove from me
at that grocery store, I yelled rape. That was the
second time I tried to get away, I yelled rape.
It is like ten eleven twelve, and we're at a
(38:45):
twenty four hour grocery store. Everybody ran from me, Nobody
came to help me.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Would you look like I'm trying to understand why people
was it that you were out of your mind high
and probably looked like hell when people just thought you
were crazy?
Speaker 1 (38:59):
My face and scabs all over my face.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
That's why I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Think my teeth were falling out yet, but I definitely
had like cavities and stuff. Yeah, yeah, very much. Why
I'm so protective of my people these days.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
And that concludes Part one of my conversation with Carly Rice.
And I'm telling you, guys, you don't want to miss
part two. It's now available to listen to the Redemption.
It's common. Together, guys, we can change the country, but
it's going to start with you. I'll see you in
part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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