Prostitution ring may involve Murfreesboro woman with disability - WSMV Channel 4
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A potential missing person report has turned up an alleged prostitution ring that has ties to Murfreesboro and Memphis. The family of a woman who suffers from a mental disability believes she is one of the victims forced into sex slavery.
Audry Scales' 24-year-old daughter, Ivy, suffers from mental retardation.
"The main thing is I want my baby to come home, because she shouldn't be out there," Scales said. "There is no telling what they are doing to her, because she doesn't know."
Scales filed a missing person report Aug. 18, but later found out her daughter had been arrested in Memphis for prostitution.
"I can't help her down there. I don't know what's going on, what they are doing to her. They are probably getting her drugged up," Scales said.
The family believes she is being forced to work as a sex slave.
"They have really forced her into that. She's not able to make that type of decision on her own," said Sherricka Scales, the woman's aunt.
One of the detectives working the case was able get in touch with Ivy Scales by phone in Memphis, who said she was there of her own freewill, but the family is not buying it.
"Her speech was very slurred," Sherricka Scales said. "I asked, 'what do you have in your mouth? Are you eating?' And she said, 'no.' It wasn't her."
"It was like she was coached on what to say," Audry Scales said.
Ivy Scales had left her four small children, who range in age from 6 months to 5 years, with a 17-year-old friend at her Jackson Street Apartment in Murfreesboro.
Police said the apartment was in deplorable condition, including a strong odor of feces and urine, molding food, ants, flies and cockroaches crawling around.
The 17-year-old reported to police her own mother, Vickie Dixon, also forced her to prostitute, charging johns $150 to have sex. The teenager said that's how Ivy Scales was first introduced to a life of prostitution before being taken to Memphis. Dixon was later arrested, police said.
"She was brought here in reference to prostitution, maintaining a house for prostitution, in which it is alleged she used her daughter to promote prostitution, her juvenile daughter," said Murfreesboro Police Spokesman Sgt. Kyle Evans.
As police questioned Dixon, she attempted to stab herself in the neck with the pen she was using to write a statement.
"When the officers went in to help her, she then turned on them and tried to stab them in the face with the ink pen," Evans said.
Audry Scales said she is hoping whoever has her daughter will let her go, so she can return home to her family.
"It's upsetting, it's hurting," Audry Scales said. "I'm angry. I'm mad."
The Department of Children's Services visited Dixon's apartment two days before the missing person inquiry, but the 17-year-old girl told them Ivy Scales wasn't home and didn't allow the worker to come inside, according to the family.
The teenager was arrested and taken to the Rutherford Juvenile Detention Center, where she was booked for criminal impersonation after she allegedly gave police a fake ID.
Dixon is also facing two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer and aggravated domestic assault for allegedly attacking her daughter.
And Murfreesboro police have issued a warrant for Ivy Scales on charges of child abuse, neglect and reckless endangerment.
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