WOOD COUNTY, Ohio — It could have just been a routine traffic stop.
"We stop thousands of cars a year, and it's very easy just to go through the motions, issue the citation, what have you," Wood County Sheriff Mark Wasylyshyn said.
But on the afternoon of Feb. 14, as Detective Sergeant Destinie Moore and Deputy Nolan O'Connell approached Langston Campbell's vehicle, they said they could tell something was wrong right away. Their first indication was the woman in the back seat refusing to make eye contact or speak to the officers at all.
"It was her silence that really triggered that something wasn't right here," said Wasylyshyn. "They also saw some bruising. She had been beaten up."
The signs of abuse were all there so the deputies made the call to take the two out of the car and started asking them questions separately.
"Through some conversations, they were able to get her to admit she had been kidnapped and was there against her will," Wasylyshyn said. "And her two-and-a-half-year-old son had been kidnapped and was being cared for by the suspect's mother."
It was a bombshell, and the deputies immediately put the 27-year-old driver in cuffs and charged with two counts of kidnapping.
"We were able to work with two different sheriff's offices up in Michigan to get her reunited with her child," Wasylyshyn said. "It was emotional for a lot of us here."
According to Wasylyshyn, Campbell and the woman first met in Texas and were originally dating but the relationship soured. That's when he said Campbell took her on a cross-country drive against her will, sex trafficking her multiple times over the last month.
BGSU criminology professor Tracy McGinley said it's unfortunately a common story and sometimes unpacking that trauma can last a lifetime, but McGinley said with therapy, there is hope.
"Obviously it's an uphill battle, but I've worked with domestic violence survivors who have gone through this kind of thing and they are thriving," said McGinley.
Wasylyshyn said Campbell's mother is also expected to be charged in this case and called her a clear accomplice.