Human Trafficking with Detective Ricky Lynn | Part 1 of 4

The hardest episodes are usually the ones we most need to hear, and this conversation goes straight into the reality behind the phrase “human trafficking.” We sit down with Detective Ricky Lynn to talk about what he saw on Lexington, Kentucky’s 7th Street and why the old approach of arresting women for prostitution often made the harm worse: withdrawal in a cell, more debt, and more pressure to return to the street just to survive.

Ricky walks us through his path from a tiny farm-town upbringing in upstate New York to big-city patrol in Lexington, where street prostitution, crack cocaine, and violence collided. We dig into how trust actually gets built with people the culture tells you to dismiss, and why those relationships can become crucial in violent crime and homicide investigations. He shares the behind-the-scenes evolution from “go get them” policing to a victim-centered, trauma-informed response that treats exploited people as human beings with names, histories, and a real chance to turn a corner.

We also talk about the turning point: third shift officers realizing they were doing a disservice, then partnering with community advocates, including Southland Church and the organization Natalie’s Sisters, created after a woman named Natalie was killed. Outreach became practical and direct: showing up consistently, bringing food, offering rides to services, and using a uniformed presence for safety rather than intimidation. The result is a clearer, more grounded view of sex trafficking, coercion, and what help can look like when law enforcement and community support move in the same direction.

If you value honest conversations about human trafficking, victim services, and real-world policing, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and leave a five-star written review so more people can find it.

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Transcript

Cold Open On 7th Street

Detective Ricky Lynn 0:00

I can tell you that uh Brian Martin, uh Samantha Moore, and Nate Mulner were all we're all on third shift. And we realized that we were arresting women that had a drug problem, that they would get three days in jail for uh prostitution. We're arresting them for prostitution, we're just making them dope sick, costing them money, and they have to go out now and turn more tricks to pay their fine. And we're standing in the middle of 7th Street at three o'clock in the morning. It was a warm summer night, and I remember this.

Wendy 0:43

Morning. The podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assault and adult language. Listening description is advised.

David 1:24

We have a content warning that rolls in front of every episode because we usually talk about sensitive topics, and we do not want to trigger anyone or make sure that we all understand that the topics are of an adult nature. The episode you are about to listen to or watch is perhaps one of the darkest we have produced, and we wanted to make sure everyone is prepared for what will be talked about. Human trafficking covers a wide spectrum of atrocities and evil. This interview goes to some of those dark places, while briefly, but they are disturbing all the same. Children should not be present when this one is played. Also, if anyone takes a hard pass at listening to or viewing this episode based on trauma they have experienced or have been close to, we understand completely and would recommend waiting this one out for one of our future drops in stories. We care deeply about all of our listeners and viewers and want to balance making educational content while at the same time protecting vulnerable people. Take care and thank you for your careful consideration on this.

Wendy 2:35

Hello and welcome back to the Murder Police Podcast. We have with us today a very special guest, Detective Ricky Lynn, and we are going to talk about human trafficking. So, Ricky, thank you so much for joining us. I've wanted to get you in here for a long time, so I'm glad you finally made it.

Detective Ricky Lynn 2:52

Thank you very much.

David 2:54

Yeah, thanks for coming in. Me too, is that uh it dawned on me because I think I told you that most of the people that listen or watch to our podcast are in it for the educational part. And uh uh as far as what human trafficking has to do maybe with uh the murder business and death investigations, is that unfortunately there's a correlation in that. And you'll probably talk more about that in many different ways, how people can lose their lives in this, which is one of the there's tons of horrible things about it. But I thought it'd be a good idea to have uh you come over and talk about what it is, especially maybe right now with all the uh stuff about the Epstein files, because that word keeps getting thrown out there, and like so many other things, I think there's a lot of what it is and what it isn't. So thank you for coming on board. Appreciate that. Looking forward to it. Uh, start out uh, because we do this and I think it's important for people. Uh, how'd you get interested in law enforcement? And what did your first part of your career track look like?

From Farm Country To Policing

Detective Ricky Lynn 3:47

Well, I guess that's a really funny question. Uh I graduated high school uh in a small town, about 2,000 people. It'd be a Weigo, New York, which sits on the Pennsylvania line, uh, right dead center in New York State, and it's all farm country. Uh and when I turned 18, I kind of followed my family's progression into we had a volunteer fire department, uh, and it was large. It was 18 vehicles, a couple paramedic ambulances, and we were the only paramedic ambulances in the whole county. So we were busy. So at 18 to 21, you can't be in law enforcement until you're 21. Uh, I actually worked in a factory. I worked on a farm before I turned 18. Worked in a factory for until I turned 21 years old. And uh everybody in the town, like if there was a fire, you left work to go fight fire. So when I turned 21, I had a lot of friends in the law enforcement world. And uh I was hired, and it did back then you had like a year to go to uh police basic school. So I first started working with no training, uh writing with one of my good friends, and uh they come out with you know, everybody talks about police basic school now, this very structured thing. And uh I went to police basic school and it was uh Monday through Friday from six at night until eleven o'clock at night, every night, and every Saturday and Sunday for I have no idea, eight months. It felt like it was forever. Yes. Uh but I grew I did that while I was working. So uh, you know, you work an eight-hour day and then you go to school until 11 o'clock at night, and it was seven days, so you didn't get a break at all for a long time. Uh but I I went to I started at the Tyoga County Sheriff's Department. We did all the law enforcement work uh in the county. They ran the jail and they dispatched for uh fire and police for the whole county. Uh so I worked there a couple years and then I went to work for the Village of Ouigo Police Department. Like I said, 2,000 people like you could go from one end of the whole village to the other in a matter of three minutes. Gotcha. So uh uh I worked there a couple years, probably three or four years. Uh and then I decided that I want to do something different because the village is kind of small, and I got hired by uh Ithaca College Public Safety as a police officer on campus. Uh, but it was the most beautiful place in the world. It was right at the end of Cuga Lake, one of the finger lakes in New York. Uh I had a boat on a lake. And I worked there about four years doing that. And then I decided that, you know, college policing is way different than regular policing. We have it had a judicial code, and when you caught a student doing something wrong, you they went through the uh judicial system on campus to teach students right for wrong, no matter what it was. It could be a stabbing, it could be, and they they went through the judicial system, and it was a little frustrating that like there was not even a criminal offense report written unless you were a non-student, and then we charged everybody criminally if you were a non-student. So uh I did that for about four years. The thing that kept me there so long was I lived on campus in a college house, uh, boat boat on the lake. I was friends with everybody at the agency, uh, and probably five or six of us had boats, and like from my front door to my boat was about six minutes.

David 8:12

Oh lord, that's pretty good.

Detective Ricky Lynn 8:14

Uh, so and and it was like on a hill. So my house overlooked looking up the lake, so there was sailboats every day. It was like living on a postcard. Yeah. Uh but I left there and I went back and I worked for the Taga County Sheriff's Department again. And uh for another from the time I started to the time I put in uh to come to Kentucky was about 13 years, and when I got hired, it was 14 years in law enforcement in upstate New York. Uh so my mom's from West Liberty, Kentucky. So wow, I didn't realize I had just down the street. So I have a lot of cousins down here. So they sent me the packet for Lexington Police Department, and it was all paper, and it was about three inches thick, and uh part of it was like a psychology paper and everything, and I was gonna fill it out, and then I said, nah, and I was gonna fill it out, and I I got assigned uh to a murder scene in a trailer, and they left the body on the floor to come back and do more forensics, but they had to leave somebody at the scene, and they did not want me to sit in my car because I couldn't see the back door, so they wanted me to stay in the trailer. So I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a dead body laying on the floor, and I had gone out and got that three-inch packet, so I'm doing psychology paperwork with a dead body laying next to me. Uh, and I'm going, I bet I messed this paperwork up. But I completed the whole packet by morning. Uh, and at that point I sent it in, and uh Lexington was hiring, and they had 34 positions, and so I came down here to take the beginning part of my testing, which was at White Hall on UK campus, and 1600 people applied for the 34 positions, and I got notified probably May of 1995, uh, that I was 35th. I'm sorry, we're not gonna hire you. So July 4th, 1995, uh one of the instructors in the academy, Billy Fryer, oh yeah, Billy, calls me on the phone and says, somebody dropped out. Would you like a job with the Lexin Police Department? And I said, Can I have a day to think about it? He goes, No, you applied. I need an answer on the phone. And I get that they're trying to fill a spot. The academy's coming up. I uh so I said, All right. He says, Well, there's a couple contingency things. You have to be a resident of Kentucky by the 10th of July. You need a driver's license, you need to reside here, a permanent address, a mailing address, and you have to come down and be fitted for uniforms and go pick up gym clothes prior to the 10th of July. Now, this is July 4th. Right.

Wendy 11:39

You don't even have a week and you gotta find a place to live.

Detective Ricky Lynn 11:43

So Monday after July 4th, or the next day that things were open, I don't remember where uh where things fell. Uh I loaded everything into a U-Haul, towed my car, and on my way to Lexington, I rented an apartment over the phone, sight unseen. I just I had a list of places that I'd gone on on the internet to find that were renting, and I just picked one and called it and rented it. And after I got to Lexington, I knew that could have been really bad for me.

David 12:18

Yeah, I don't want to name it.

Wendy 12:20

I was just wondering what a part where it was gonna be.

David 12:23

Yeah, but but I'll you know, real quick, is I've I was just a couple years ahead of you and came from Louisville, and uh there's nothing like going to a town that you don't know where everything's at. And I'd uh let's just say I dodged a few bullets.

Wendy 12:36

Well, without naming it, Ricky, was it a decent part of town?

Detective Ricky Lynn 12:39

Yeah, uh so it was there was an apartment. There used to be a a restaurant on Lane Allen Road called Friends and Company. Yes, and there was an apartment complex behind that, right? And that's where I rented, and I showed up, and there's I called the lady and I said, You know, I'd like to rent it. Here's my credit card. Uh I said, You can just put the key under the mat, I'll be there in about six hours. And the lady goes, Well, I'll just meet you at the door, and she's like 70, 80 years old. And I showed up and she's standing there waiting for me with a gift for me to move in. Yeah, uh, and that's where I started my living when I was in the academy in the first couple years, and while I worked for Luxem Police Department.

David 13:30

Cool. What a neat story. And I remember those ratios because again, I was just a few years before, and I walked in and they were only taking 10 of us, and there was like well over a thousand. Those days will never happen again unless you capture people and make them stay in that room and put lotion on their skin and feed them. You won't get a thousand people in a room anymore for a police thing. They're doing walk-in testing now.

Wendy 13:52

What did the college say about you giving no two weeks' notice?

Detective Ricky Lynn 13:56

Well, I I'd gone back to the sheriff's department, and the sheriff uh was Ray Ayers, and he knew I would wanted someplace bigger, and he said, Whatever you need. And even the police chief for the Weigo police chief, Robert Williams, said they were both in, like, like they were friends mine. Uh, like I said, it's a town of 2,000 people, so everybody's friends. Uh, so they both, you know, wrote raving reviews. They probably fudged a little bit, you know, like uh worth the money, exactly. But uh yeah, I so I started July 10th, uh, 1995 for Lexington, and then we're in the academy for almost a year.

David 14:44

Yeah, it's a long time. It's especially after you're doing some training, it's gotta do that too. So gotta be a long time there. Neat story. I think we all fall into that too. The paperwork, the process, the it just felt like it took forever, you know, to get in there too. But it I always tell people that if they're trying and you don't make it the first time and you're and they don't tell you your terminal, every now and then they'll tell somebody this really isn't gonna be for you ever to keep trying. You know, because there's people you and I that we worked with, there were people that tried four or five times and then they left in command and executive positions. It's it's just the luck of the draw sometimes. There's a lot of it that comes down to that sometimes. So uh to it was hard to try.

Detective Ricky Lynn 15:26

I remember in the process, the paperwork process, they required about eight references that are not family members, right? Which was pretty easy, but then I needed three people that have known me since I was born to vouch for me now. And if you think about that, if you're 21 years old to find somebody that knows you when a baby, it's usually a very elderly person, like like I'm trying to find babysitters and stuff that that you know I didn't have. I was lucky I was from a very small town and and I found people, but if you were 21 and you moved away to college, I that would be a hard thing to come up with.

First Patrol Shock And Prostitution

David 16:13

It was tough because I remember I I I remember I used some neighbors and stuff like that because that there were neighbors that when I was born knew me and stuff like that. I think Teresa Howe next door, I think she I think she told the backgrounds people that him and his brothers fought a lot, which was the gospel truth, and that maybe that got me in. Because you know, it's uh my older brothers would beat me in, I'd beat my two younger brothers, and it was just part of having five boys in a house. So you you get on, you make it to the academy and whatnot, uh, go to patrol like we all do. I mean, that that's where you're earn your bones. Tell us a little bit about because now your your specialty now at some point in your career, and then it continues on now into your new gigs, is this thing called human trafficking. Uh, where where did that spark and what were the things that got you to that point?

Detective Ricky Lynn 16:59

So I went through the whole FTO phase. Right. And I did all like I come from a small town that there's probably five or six minorities that I knew total.

David 17:13

Right.

Detective Ricky Lynn 17:14

So I do all my training in Lexington, and all my rotations were on Versailles Road, and that was before Cardinal Valley was mostly Hispanic, and it was like policing in New York.

David 17:30

Yeah.

Detective Ricky Lynn 17:31

And so I get put on my own, and the first day was downtown in Lexington, and my beat was Bluegrass Aspendale housing projects.

David 17:44

Okay, that's a bit of a turn from Versailles Road.

Wendy 17:47

And from back home with 2,000 people?

Detective Ricky Lynn 17:49

Yes. I rolled up my, I can tell you, for the three months I rode with all my windows up, wondering what in the heck did I do? Like, like this is the worst thing in the world. And uh it took me about three months, four months to get accustomed to it. Now, along with a bluegrass Asmondale housing project, came with a street that it was 7th Street and limestone, and uh there was a lot of street prostitution, which I I had never seen in my life, and that intrigued me so much because back then the drug of choice uh where I worked was crack cocaine. We didn't have any of that where I was, so it was a learning experience. One, how to talk to people, understanding uh minority families, how they are run different than like I thought everybody was yelling at me, like I thought everybody was aggressive towards me when I first started, like like it's just a different type of family that have a lot of people and they talk louder, and when they want to talk to you, they talk over everybody to talk to you, which is just normal. And so this whole new thing I was learning in police work uh was just very, very different. It was a learning curve. Well, when I started talking to women that were involved in prostitution, and like right now, all the advocates say never, never, never take people involved in prostitution to jail, uh back then there was no human trafficking laws, and we would get complaints about people soliciting on the street. So I probably in Kentucky have taken more women to jail and men to jail for prostitution than probably anybody in the state, I would think.

David 20:04

I I agree. I think it was it was the way it was. Does that make sense? I mean, is that uh because some of the special assignment stuff I know that uh working down there doing the same thing, and and we won't name any names, but we could name names of some people that we were both familiar with from down on the Seventh Street stroke.

Detective Ricky Lynn 20:20

Oh oh, it's funny because I'm through my career I've gotten to be friends with most of them.

David 20:29

Right.

Detective Ricky Lynn 20:30

So now it's like I get hugs and speedway and and uh like like they're my friends.

David 20:38

I I tell Wendy all the time that for me, I I think when I was on the road and did some special assignment work is I put a few in jail too. You'd sting them and stuff like that. But then uh when I got into homicide, is that that was uh an information source. And it changed a little bit for me then. Um I've said before that uh so many of them would have a misdemeanor warrant that wasn't for anything horrible, and I'd have it converted to a summons. And what ended up happening was developing those relationships and a rapport, that in turn, for me, and I think you found it the same way, was the immense amount of respect you got for people that our culture was saying to think differently of. And uh I tell Wendy, uh, because there's some that stay in touch with me today, and uh I'm I won't name her, but there's uh a woman that has she 180 turned her life around, and uh five or six times a year I'll get a text from her. Holidays, things like that.

Detective Ricky Lynn 21:29

Um I think this past Father's Day, I got 27 text messages for women that have been human trafficked or involved in prostitution wishing me a happy Father's Day because uh they knew I raised my daughter all alone and yeah, like like just the conversations, but there were I like twenty seven. It I it like I actually teared up going, This is crazy.

David 21:54

And it's so counter we always talk about what movie and TV does to the industry. It is 180. Degrees one more time against what people do. I had a uh capital murder trial one time, and months later I'm in a restaurant and a juror comes up and meets me. And uh she was talking about the trial and uh very difficult trial for the jury. But one thing she talked about was that we we had actually brought in some information from some of the the girls and uh that were working at that time. And she even remarked, Ricky, she said, I never knew that world existed. And she goes, I never knew that you all had relationships with those people. And I think she even finished it with and how this is cool, how remarkably strong they were. Because in a in the cases that you and I worked when they when they finally came forward in a world of snitches get stitches, and even and I think if they're working and they're working for someone, it's worse because the punishment, and you'll go there in a minute about what that's like. It's got to be awful. But uh I that's one thing I get across to people is that you end up having you develop real relationships with people that the culture tells you to push back. And the police culture forever was it was a go-get them game. It was uh kind of like a sporting thing, if that makes sense. Yeah. Like it was it wasn't malicious, but it's like, can we can we ride down this street and see if a girl will solicit us? And uh me and Dean Casey were in a in a little little blue car one time, and and I I won't, and it was just it was either at works or duddon, he and and uh never malicious, but uh that's what I want to talk to you about. There was an evolution.

The Turning Point On Third Shift

Building Help With Natalie’s Sisters

Detective Ricky Lynn 23:28

So my evolution was uh early on, there was a lot of crimes against women involved in prostitution. There was lots of times we didn't know their real names. So I started uh the jail used to have pictures on when someone got arrested. Uh it wasn't like I was tracking them, I just printed out the jail sheet on them. So we had a picture and a name and a date of birth for and and I kept a book and I still have the book. I found it the other day. It was kind of funny, and it's probably got 250 pages in it. Uh, but it was funny that the the department didn't want to say they were tracking women involved in prostitution, but they allowed me to do this on my own. I it was public information, it wasn't like I was like anybody in the city could have printed out this page. So I just started keeping so it won it when we got lied to on the street to who they were because somebody had a warrant or something. I just went through the book to figure out who they were, and and that resolved things, but it came in handy when there was a homicide or something like that. That I get called at three o'clock in the morning and said, Hey, bring your book down, and we want to go through it to ID this person, and it really helped in many different aspects for helping people versus hindering them. Uh, and then it was probably around 2000, 2005, somewhere near the first uh 2011, the first human trafficking laws come in. So it was a little bit before that, right about that same time. I can tell you that uh Brian Martin, uh, Samantha Moore, and Nate Mulner were all we're all on third shift. And we realized that we were arresting women that had a drug problem, that they would get three days in jail for uh prostitution. We're arresting them for prostitution, we're just making them dope sick, costing them money, and they have to go out now and turn more tricks to pay their fine. And we're standing in the middle of 7th Street at three o'clock in the morning. It was a warm summer night, and I remember this. And Nate Mulner's wife worked with Southland Church in a program called Bruise Reed that they went into uh strip bars and they talked with the women and tried to help the women in strip bars. The church did. So we started talking with her a great deal. Uh a lady named Janie Lewis got involved, and we were having all these talks. And out of that talk, in the middle of the four officers standing in the middle of 7th Street, scratching their head, going, We're doing a disservice to this part of the community. Uh we had a couple meetings at uh Nate Molner's house. I think Janie Lewis had a meeting, and we we changed, and then a lady got killed, and I don't remember her last name, but her first name was Natalie here in Lexington. And uh Natalie's sisters was born to help women on the street involved in prostitution and human trafficking, and that was uh like a huge deal in that world. Like now we're gonna try to help and get people help with their drug addiction, help them with their family, help them with DCBS, connect them back with their families and kids, and like it was very worthwhile uh in my heart to help these people this way. So we would go out on the street and sometimes even in a marked car, and once a week we would drop food off so and transport the women from Natalie Sisters to talk with these people on the street. And we did it with uniformed officers for the set 7th Street was, as you know, always not the nicest street. Like sometimes we had stabbings and shootings, and uh and at that point, the department wanted a uniform guy just for the protection of these women trying to help other women on the street, establish some kind of a safety, yeah, for sure, a presence.

David 28:36

I understand that completely.

Detective Ricky Lynn 28:37

And that's all we're there for. Well, if you did that after about a month and a half, first of all, to have a woman involved in prostitution or a woman being trafficked to walk up to a police car, first of all, was unheard of. And now they're running up to the police car because they realize that the women from Natalie Sisters is in this, and we have food. Uh so from that it was really funny that you you would it changed the whole demeanor that even if you had to arrest somebody, you usually got a hug. Saying and the only people that were arresting at that point is if somebody was intoxicated to a point that they were a really hazard to themselves, or if you found somebody that had not eaten in five days, or somebody that said they have like you know, I got cut and it's all infected, and you putting somebody in jail got free medical care. So we used the jail as a tool to help uh this group of individuals in the community. So we did a I and and and I cannot say I we because it was a team approach from across the board. Uh and then from there, Brian Martin and I started doing community cookouts on 7th Street, and we realized that there was more people hurting down there than just hey, you know there's more to the story, so go download the next episode like the true crime fan that you are.

David 30:29

The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded, and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform, as well as at MurderPolice Podcast.com, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters, and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store, where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police Podcast Squad. We are also on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, which is closed caption for those that are here impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars in a written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcast. Make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop. And please tell your friends.

Wendy 31:29

Lock it down, Judy.