Yorba Linda is a suburban city of about 68,000 residents in northeastern Orange County, located approximately 37 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Prostitution and sex trafficking have been well-documented in the city and county, resulting in complaints to law enforcement. Some of the more serious crimes associated with the local commercial sex market include child sex trafficking and the violent murder of a minor sex trafficking victim by a sex buyer.

Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has therefore been targeted by local law enforcement agencies as a strategy for prevention and response. At least one sex buyer arrest has occurred in the city. In February 2014, the body of a 17-year-old girl was found stabbed to death in an upscale Yorba Linda neighborhood. At about the same time, a man walked into a hospital roughly 20 miles away with a slashed hand and a suspicious story. Later that day, he was arrested on suspicion of murder. The victim had been dropped off in the neighborhood at about 3 a.m. for a meeting with a sex buyer, and her body was found lying on a curb by a bicyclist at 5:40 a.m. It was later determined that the victim may have been the former girlfriend of the assailant. The girl had been identified as a sex trafficking victim in a prostitution sting in January and was reported missing from her Gardena home in the weeks before she was killed. According to prosecutors, the man who killed her lured her to Yorba Linda and then stabbed her 38 times in revenge for the theft of thousands of dollars. His identity was released to the press.