SLO sex trafficking case begins — with 3 juries to decide the verdict
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- San Luis Obispo holds first in-county multiple-jury trial with three juries.
- Prosecutors claim defendants conspired to exploit a minor across state lines.
- Defense lawyers argue defendants unaware of minor's age, deny trafficking claims.
San Luis Obispo Superior Court’s first multiple-jury trial began Tuesday, with 48 jurors arriving with color-coded badges that correspond with the defendant whose fate they’ll decide.
Joshua Murphy, 27, Tremaine Jones, 32, and Heather Hunt, 32, were arrested and accused of sex-trafficking a 15-year-old girl in January 2021. The girl, identified as Jazmin Doe in court, was reported as missing and at-risk from her Nevada home.
Three separate juries, made up of 12 jurors and four alternates, will hear evidence against all three defendants at the same time. It’s the first multiple-jury trial to take place in San Luis Obispo County, according to San Luis Obispo Superior Court Jury Commissioner Nikki Rodriguez.
Rodriguez said she typically summons 2,500 people per week for jury duty, but in order to find 48 jurors she began summoning 5,000 per week starting in April.
The only other multiple-jury trial in San Luis Obispo County history was the case against Paul and Ruben Flores for the murder of Kristin Smart, but the trial was run in Monterey County Superior Court. This is the first time San Luis Obispo Superior Court will have more than one jury in a courtroom, Rodriguez said.
Murphy, Jones and Hunt all face charges for sex trafficking a minor under 18 and pimping a minor under 16. Murphy was also charged with possession of child pornography, producing child pornography and having sex with a child under 15. Hunt was also charged with producing child porn.
Defendants ‘saw a child as a product to control and sell,’ prosecutor says
Text messages show Murphy, Jones and Hunt conspired together to find a “hoe b--ch” they could prostitute from Nevada to California, San Luis Obispo County Deputy District Attorney Kimberly Dittrich told the jury in her opening statements.
“From Jan. 6 to Jan. 26, 2021, the three defendants conspired to lure, control and profit from a child that they targeted because of her looks and age,” Dittrich said.
Dittrich said Murphy found Jazmin on a dating app and FaceTimed her 25 times over a three-day period before he, Jones and Hunt drove to Nevada to pick her up with a plan to make money.
Jazmin climbed out her window on Jan. 10, 2021 — the same night her family reported her as missing.
They took her high school ID card, earrings and her pink iPhone and had her deactivate it to prevent law enforcement and her family from finding her, Dittrich said, adding that they gave her drugs “to keep her compliant” and provided lingerie, condoms and menstrual products so she could work through her period. They also added the app Life360 to her phone as a tracking device, Dittrich said.
Murphy told Jazmin over text that her “body, mind and soul belonged to him” and that “she had no free will,” Dittrich said, adding that the defendants had many incriminating text messages with one another.
This included texts discussing whether they should get pills to keep Jazmin awake so she could work all night.
In another text exchange, Dittrich said, Jazmin had asked Murphy to stop working because she was having period cramps, to which he responded by telling her to “give blowjobs.” The following day when she asked Murphy to use the bathroom so she could change her tampon, Murphy told her no and that she had not met her quota for the day and needed to continue working, Dittrich said.
Jones and Hunt then changed online ads for Jazmin to be oral sex only “so they could keep making money off her,” Dittrich said.
Jazmin was found by the San Luis Obispo counter-human-trafficking team during a sting operation where an investigator posing as a client set up a meeting with her at Laguna Lake park on Jan. 26, 2021.
She first lied about her age and whether she had a pimp to police — something Dittrich said expert testimony will show is common of sex trafficked victims who were coerced into loyalty — and when she was handcuffed and placed into a SUV, Murphy, who was watching nearby from his rental vehicle, began chasing the SUV and caused a crash.
Inside his car, investigators found Jazmin’s school ID in Murphy’s wallet, condoms, feminine hygiene products, lingerie, heels and Murphy’s cell phone, Dittrich said.
According Murphy’s Google search history, he had searched for “runaways,” “Jazmin missing 13 year old,” and “prostitution prices here pismo,” Dittrich said.
Murphy, Jones, Hunt and Jazmin all shared hotel rooms and coordinated rental car vehicles together, Dittrich said.
“This case included coordination exploitation and a callous disregard for Jazmin’s humanity,” Dittrich said. “They saw a child not as a person, but as a product to control and sell.”
Defendants did not know girl was underage, attorneys claim
The defense has a different interpretation of events.
Murphy was Jazmin’s assistant — not her pimp — Murphy’s defense attorney Addison Steele told the jury during opening statements.
“Our evidence is going to show is that the person who was running the show was Jazmin, and that what Mr. Murphy’s part was, he was her assistant. He was her errand boy,” Murphy told the jury.
His client did not know Jazmin was only 15 at the time that they met, Steele said, adding that Jazmin did not look like a 15-year-old and that she had told Murphy she was 20 when they met on the dating app.
Steele said the text messages quoted by Dittrich were taken out of context and use African American Vernacular English, or language that is commonly used is Black cultural communities. He said many of the words used can mean different things in different contexts.
The two had a dating relationship, he said, and their main ”lover’s spat” were about Jazmin using a stereotypical Black cultural accent and language to try to fit in when she was Hispanic.
He said the text messages will actually show it was Jazmin who was in charge of the prostitution and that she did so willingly — not with force or fear — and noted that she told investigators Murphy was “simping pimping,” meaning he was a “wannabe pimp.”
Jones’ attorney, Andrew Jennings, told the jury his client was “simply along for the ride” and did not have much to do with anything Murphy and Jazmin were doing.
Murphy borrowed Hunt’s car to pick up Jazmin from Nevada, and Jones only went along because Hunt was his girlfriend, Jennings said.
Jones had no reason to believe Jazmin was underage or that Murphy knew she was underage, Jennings said, adding that Jones and Hunt were always in separate cars from Murphy and Jazmin. Murphy and Jazmin’s relationship was also consensual, Jennings said.
“You might not like some of the lifestyle choices here between these parties with Mr. Jones, but just because you don’t like those choices, that doesn’t mean he’s involved in a conspiracy,” Jennings told the jury.
Hunt’s attorney, Paul Phillips, said his client does not have a criminal record despite being a sex worker and said Hunt did not communicate with Jazmin directly.
Hunt also had no reason to believe Jazmin was a minor, Phillips said, and added that Jazmin spent the night and ate dinner with Hunt’s parents.
Phillips said the evidence falls short of finding Hunt guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and asked the jury to find her innocent.
Investigator breaks down sting operation that ended in car chase
San Luis Obispo County Assistant Chief Investigator J.T. Camp, who specializes in major crimes and human trafficking investigations, said in his testimony that he and the counter-human-trafficking team in San Luis Obispo County found Jazmin when they went on a website known for posting sex worker ads when they were conducting an operation.
San Luis Obispo County doesn’t have a street where sex workers and customers can meet in person, known as a “blade,” so much of the human trafficking in the county is done through online ads, he said.
He said he went on the website and was looking for a “high value target,” which he described as a minor who is being sex trafficked.
The ad posted for Jazmin’s services was suspicious because she looked young in the photos, and the photos were more graphic than other ads. The ad said that Jazmin worked independently, meaning without a pimp, but he added that sometimes sex workers will say that falsely in order to entice more customers.
On Jan. 26, he set up a meeting with Jazmin at Laguna Lake Park. Unbeknownst to Jazmin, there were several undercover law enforcement officers at the scene scattered around the park as she walked to his truck, where he and another detective were seated.
He said she did appear to be 15 or 16, and when she arrived at the truck a “contact team,” or officers with visible identification, nearby in a minivan moved to detain her so they could start their investigation.
She and the officers talked for around an hour, and at the end of the hour, Camp said he asked her whether someone would be looking for her, and she seemed “more concerned” about what was going on around her. She agreed to leave with investigators and they began driving to the Sheriff’s Office, and that’s when Camp got a call that someone may be chasing them.
Just after he was alerted someone was chasing them, there was a crash behind them. The driver was Joshua Murphy and another undercover investigator that was driving an unmarked vehicle.
Camp is expected to continue his testimony Wednesday.
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 2:44 PM.
