Fort Pierce is a city of about 47,000 located in southeastern Florida. Prostitution, sex trafficking, and violence associated with commercial sex have been well-documented in the city and surrounding areas for decades. For example, a man with a history of sexual deviancy spanning five years was arrested in July 2021 on murder charges. The man had previously been accused of raping and beating multiple prostituted women. He had been held in jail since May 2020 on sexual battery charges against three women who detectives say were prostituted. The more than year-long investigation concluded and the man was charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 50-year-old woman who had been prostituted. His record of local violence against prostituted women extended back to at least 2016. In December 2016, Fort Pierce police said a woman was walking the streets and was picked up by the offender. An arrest warrant said the woman was raped inside his vehicle and told to get into his trunk. The woman said she was hit in the back of the head and pushed to the ground but ran away before being put in the trunk. A sexual assault DNA kit linked the man to the crime. In March 2019, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said another prostituted woman was picked up by the man. The woman tried to get out of the car and was severely beaten and sexually assaulted. She was thrown into the trunk of his car and told investigators she was repeatedly taken out of the trunk and raped over a period of time.  She was dropped off naked and without her cell phone. She was hospitalized with a brain bleed and severe bruising on her face. In April 2020, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office stated that another prostituted woman was picked up and beaten, choked, and sexually assaulted. Investigators concluded that the amount of violence between each case was growing exponentially. Detectives arrested the man in connection with the sexual battery cases at an apartment complex on 26th Street in Fort Pierce. The man’s mother and grandmother moved the car from the apartment complex where he was arrested to keep it from being towed. Two weeks later, detectives got a call from the defendant’s mother about the possibility of a body in the trunk of the man’s car. Detectives opened the trunk of the car and found the decomposing body of the woman, later determined to have also been exploited in prostitution.