A father pushes his daughter into a life of selling sex as friends attempt to make sense of it all. Sharon leaves behind her dreams of college and brings a baby into a world of sex work, controlled by the one person who was supposed to protect her. Once again, her new friends struggle to help her escape. Girl in the Picture Podcast is a companion to the documentary coming to Netflix on July 6, 2022. The podcast is a standalone audio documentary and can be listened to before or after watching the film. If you are hoping to avoid spoilers, we recommend watching the film before listening to episode 3.
A father pushes his daughter into a life of selling sex as friends attempt to make sense of it all. Sharon leaves behind her dreams of college and brings a baby into a world of sex work, controlled by the one person who was supposed to protect her. Once again, her new friends struggle to help her escape.
Girl in the Picture Podcast is a companion to the documentary coming to Netflix on July 6, 2022. The podcast is a standalone audio documentary and can be listened to before or after watching the film. If you are hoping to avoid spoilers, we recommend watching the film before listening to episode 3.
Girl in the Picture Podcast is brought to you by Netflix and Main Event Media.
Narrator: Skye Borgman
Writer and Producer: Anna Priestland
Executive Producers: Emily Bon and Jimmy Fox for Main Event Media, Skye Borgman and Matt Birkbeck.
Sound Editor: Joel Porter
Sound Designer and Mixer: Reed Thomas Lawrence
Original Music Composition by: Jimmy Stofer
Based on the books “A Beautiful Child" and “Finding Sharon” by Matt Birkbeck.
Special Thanks: Karen Parsley, Heather Lane, Rosario Sanchez, Michelle Cupples, and Jenny Fisher
If you are in need of support on any of the issues related to this podcast, please reach out to someone.
If you need to talk with someone, but aren't sure which service is best for you, Victim Connect Resource Center can help you.
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN)
1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or
or online using a safe computer at www.thehotline.org
National Sexual Violence Resource Centre
National Human Trafficking Hotline
Hotline: 1-888-373-7888
Text: 233733
ChildHelp National Child Abuse Hotline
Hotline: 1 (800) 422 – 4453
Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via phone and text.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Hotline: 1 (800) 843 – 5678
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Hotline: 1 (800) 662 – 4357
[00:00:00]
SKYE: This podcast contains content which may be upsetting or triggering to some listeners, please check the show notes for resources should you need to reach out to someone.
SHARON: You don't care anymore, you don't care anymore.
KAREN: I think he knew she was gonna run. I don't think he could keep her like, he wanted. I said why don't we just run in right now and get Michael? No, no, no, no. She said he would always find her. I think she wanted to really do it. Couldn't. She was scared. She couldn't leave him. She knows too much stuff and he's gonna find her.
[00:01:07]
SKYE: At the end of episode one of ''Girl in the Picture'', Warren and Sharon had left Arizona without telling anyone where they were going. Sharon was pregnant for the second time, and in late 1987, they arrived in Tampa, Florida setting up home in a trailer park awaiting Michael's birth. That November an article appeared in the East Hillsborough Tribune highlighting the long crusade of the city of Tampa to shut down the ten nude clubs in the area. Physical contact was illegal and undercover cops were going into clubs every night and arresting dancers for breaking the no contact rule. A reporter from the Tribune who remained anonymous had gone in search of the real experience at the most prestigious club in town, Joe Redner's, Mons Venus. I spoke with Heather who was a dancer at Mons Venus back then.
[00:02:00]
HEATHER: Mons Venus in the late 1980s, early '90s, was the only place to go for adult entertainment. There was nothing like this anywhere. We had everyone come through here, women, athletes, musicians, businessmen, and it was amazing. Straight out the gate, I felt empowered. I just saw that the women here had power over the men. If they were exploiting themselves, they were making the choice to do so, and they were getting paid a lot of money to do that.
[00:02:46]
SKYE: In his article, the reporter describes the dancer at Mons Venus answering his direct questions while offering him an illegal $20 lap dance. Joe Redner had a rule for women who worked at his clubs. You can do anything with a customer inside that you can candidly do on the street. And he swore that sex for money wasn't happening at the club. However, some of the Mons Venus dancers were making deals with customers inside and leaving with them. Shortly before Warren and Sharon arrived in Florida, a dancer left with a man who drove her to a secluded spot and attempted to attack her with an ice pick. She escaped and he was charged, but this incident left the women at the club with even more reasons to keep an eye on each other. The reporter casually declines the lap dance, and he focuses on one particular dancer. The article reads, ''One was pregnant and wore only a flimsy smock that barely covered her swollen belly. When I asked the other dancers that night about her, none of them knew who she was.''
[00:03:58 ]
HEATHER: I remember the day that Sharon Marshall walked through the door. She was so cute. She was tiny, maybe 5'2'', and just as cute as she could be. And she had--she had something--she dressed very innocent. When she was here, she had lacy little socks that she wore. Sometimes she wore little ballet slippers. She wasn't wearing heels like the--the other girls, and she had a full lace cover-up. So she was never walking around completely naked like everyone else. And I remember having a conversation with her like that--that, "You don't even look like you're 18." She told me one time that every time she has a lap dance with a much older man, she feels that she's keeping that man from doing something to some other little girl.
[00:05:09 ]
SKYE: Sharon shied away from social interactions with other girls at Mons Venus. And although heavily pregnant she worked late nights all week.
[00:05:19 ]
HEATHER: Some people thought, well, she just keeps to herself. She's aloof, and I just felt that she was very shy. But as soon as I found out that she had had a baby that was put up for adoption when I found that out, I-I mean, I started looking back at how I knew her, the things that I observed about her, and she was obviously very traumatized.
[00:05:51 ]
SKYE: Sharon wrote Jenny a letter around this time telling her about all the musicians that she'd met through work and how she dated the carpenter from Van Halen. But Sharon never told Jenny it was a strip club she was working in, or that she was a dancer there. Jenny just thought she was a cocktail waitress. And Sharon never mentioned Michael in that letter, even though he'd been born a couple of months earlier in April 1988. Within days of Michael's birth, Sharon returned to Mons Venus to dance.
[00:06:26 ]
HEATHER: She was so engaged with him. It was the only time he was a calm baby was when she was around and he was happy, and he looked at her right in the eyes where he wouldn't look at me, he wouldn't look at her father. I really worried about Warren's relationship with Michael because he always had him in the car seat. He never held him. I never saw him hold the baby, and they would sit outside in the parking lot. Now it was normal for him to be in the parking lot prior to Michael's birth all day and all night. But now here we have a baby and he's in a car seat the whole time Sharon is inside working and that's when the girls in the club started telling me about her dad and their weird relationship.
[00:07:31 ]
SKYE: By this time, those around Sharon knew he was exploiting her for money. It's believed now that this was already happening earlier than this. In Arizona, and possibly even Georgia, when she was underage, Warren was sex trafficking his own daughter. And being trafficked despite what we read in the news, isn't always stranger abductions and international people's smuggling in white vans. And it's not always groups or crime rings who traffic people, it can be individuals too. And the criteria for what constitutes a trafficking victim is vast. Sharon had gone from experiencing sexual abuse to sexual exploitation. And because she'd been cut off from every relationship she'd ever had, there was no one left from her past to question it. And this bond that Sharon had with him, this kind of unbreakable mix of fear and love. It's what is called ''coercive trauma bonding''. It's not a bond between two victims of crime or those having gone through similar traumatic events. It's a bond that forms between the victim and the person trafficking them. Rosario Sanchez is a critical care and forensic nurse working with victims of crime, particularly victims of sex trafficking.
[00:09:01 ]
ROSARIO: Trauma bonding is a general term that we use to understand the strong emotional bond that happens between the trafficker and a victim. It is a brainwashing, and it creates a very strong bond that is really hard to break. There may be an emotional bond from the adolescent to the trafficker, but not from the trafficker to the adolescent because this bond is based on pure exploitation and primal fear. It's created through many tactics from the trafficker. The trafficker may use isolation, isolating the child from friends, from families, so that this way they have nowhere to run away.
[00:09:49 ]
SKYE: Coercive trauma bonding forms through coercion and brainwashing over a long period of time, and the goal is always monetary gain. After living in a few different trailer parks around Tampa, Warren, Sharon, and Michael moved to the golden lantern trailer park. Michelle who was 15 at the time, met them when they first arrived.
[00:10:17 ]
MICHELLE: This gentleman and young lady and a little baby stroller were walking, and I was like, "How old's your baby?" And, you know, talking and stuff. And they introduced him as Pooky so that kinda stuck. And it was like, ''Hey, do you guys ever babysit?'' He's like, "You know, we're forever doing things and could use a good reliable babysitter." It was a normal two-bedroom, one-bath, you know, average size trailer. Warren slept on the hide a bed, in the living room. Sharon had the back room, and then the middle front room was Pooky's, Michaels. He didn't have a crib. I always thought that was weird. He had like a little pack and play. They didn't have much for being a family.
[00:11:10 ]
SKYE: Up until this point, friends like Heather had only seen Michael when Warren was outside the club or Sharon was leaving work. Michelle was the only person who got to know Warren and Sharon away from Mons Venus. And she would end up being the only person who really spent time with Michael.
[00:11:27 ]
MICHELLE: He was quiet. He had some odd traits that I didn't understand at that age. He would rock and pound his head. And I had never seen that before, and so my mom was saying to me, you know, Sharon's young, maybe it's, you know, not a happy home life and babies kind of, sorta do certain things like that for coping mechanisms. I feel that he was behind the eight ball. Like, his milestones for his age he was always hungry and that was one of the things I noticed. That the relationship wasn't normal, 'cause I would try to talk to her about giving him other things and it was like Warren always would interject and stop the conversation and wouldn't let her speak. I always thought that was weird. She was gone from, like, 8:00 at night to like 03:00 in the morning. I felt like I spent more time with Pooky than, you know, they did there for a little while.
[00:12:36 ]
HEATHER: Her dad told her that she needed to inquire about the parties that I was setting up. That was his call. There is this amazing Millionaires Club here and they would have parties and their parties were the easiest to do, and that was the first party I took Sharon to. It's $300 to walk through the door, you dance three songs, no lap dancing, no one touches you. Her father wanted to come in and watch. He wasn't concerned about her safety. He wanted to just see, watch what we were doing, what the show was about. That experience ended up, unfortunately not being a good one. One of the men told me you had better go get Sharon and I need her to leave now. She's in front of the women's bathroom. And she was offering sex services to these men for $50. And so she said, ''Well, my dad told me to do it and he bought me condoms.''
[00:14:02 ]
SKYE: Heather says things got even worse after this.
[00:14:05 ]
HEATHER: He was just obsessed with her beauty. He was obsessed with her. After that party at the Millionaires Club, he was telling me that he wanted Sharon to get into porn. And he asked me if I knew anyone, and could I help her? Because all she needs is to get breast implants and she will be ready to go. That was disgusting. I couldn't believe that a man would put their daughter in that situation.
[00:14:52 ]
ROSARIO: To be a trafficker really is a person that has lost all humanness about. themselves. That's how they obtain power, and it's more of a mental gain rather than anything else. It's a power and control and it's easy to be controlled to adolescence because they don't have a fully developed abstract thinking. Their brain hasn't fully developed.
[00:15:25 ]
HEATHER: I was trying to teach her how to be empowered in what she was doing instead of basically being victimized and used. Because if--if you're--if you're gonna exploit yourself, you should be in control of what you're exploiting and never put yourself into a situation where you're not empowered.
[00:15:54 ]
SKYE: When Warren got a boat, he became the cool dad taking people out on it every weekend. It also did something else, it gave him power. When he was out on the water, whoever was out there with him was under his complete control.
[00:16:17 ]
MICHELLE: There was a time when Warren and Sharon took us out on the boat and my best friend went with me and he had one of those little tubes that you could pull behind the boat. And we took pictures, we were so excited, and I remember looking at the photos and my mom was like, ''W-wait, what are these photos? And where w-who took these photos?'' I was like, ''Mom, what's your problem? They were on the boat Warren, with Sharon.'' ''No, Michelle, you're not going on that boat no more. You're not allowed to go on that boat no more. No, no more. As a matter of fact, I don't even want you over at that man's house ever again. He is a grown man. He should not be taking pictures of minors.''
[00:17:04 ]
HEATHER: He was getting more bold. He was telling me more things. She accidentally called him by a different name. She called him by a name instead of dad. I didn't really pick up on it, but he did, and he said, ''Oh, uh, I'm--I'm under a different name because I have traffic tickets and there's a warrant for my arrest.'' And I didn't really catch on. But he--he just started defending himself and he looked at Sharon like she had really messed up and she looked at him like she was afraid, and I didn't--I didn't take it as anything. In the life I was in, there were a lot of people that had warrants.
[00:17:49 ]
SKYE: While trying to push Sharon's career towards porn, Warren was also trying to get Heather into the fold, but Heather despised Warren.
[00:18:01 ]
HEATHER: Her dad told me about her stripping at 12 years old in Kentucky and how everyone knew that she was 12 years old.
[00:18:13 ]
SKYE: This was the moment Heather realized how far back Warren's abuse had gone. Before Sharon's high school years in Georgia, they did live in Louisville, Kentucky. Sharon phoned Heather one day from a motel where Warren had taken her to meet one of his friends. Heather knew Sharon was there to sell sex and Sharon wasn't giving the sort of service the man was after and she needed Heather's help.
[00:18:44 ]
HEATHER: I kind of had an idea what I was getting into or at least I thought I knew what I was getting into. And I pulled up to a seedy motel and I've never seen anything like this. And the guy tells me about how he had been with Sharon for years. And Sharon was maybe 18 years old at the time. And he had--he had had relations with her for years and Warren, he had no problem passing her around to his friends and I just felt like I wanted better for her.
[00:19:28 ]
SKYE: Back in high school, both Jenny and Lynn questioned whether Warren was allowing people he knew to abuse Sharon. They may not have had the confidence or maturity to really understand what they were suspecting but, as an adult, Heather knew exactly what was happening.
[00:19:50 ]
HEATHER: I was actually kidnapped when I was nine. I was gone from my mom for almost six years. I was kidnapped by a known pedophile and that was a very hard life. We were on the run a lot. We lived in Mexico. We lived in some of the most dangerous areas no matter where we lived. It was very tough surviving that and I felt powerless the entire time. Came back to my mom when I was almost 15. When you grow up being abused like Sharon and I were, you have no idea what is normal behavior.
[00:20:35 ]
SKYE: Heather had taken her experience and used it to empower her in her adult life. Although she had come back home traumatized, she also felt supported and wanted. Her mom had fought for years to get her back and was there waiting for her. Warren was Sharon's family. He was all she had.
[00:21:01 ]
HEATHER: There was a storm brewing in the club because a lot of the girls had been abused. So there were a lot of girls that were very upset and the security and some of the men that frequent the place, they were just waiting to jump in and save her and her baby and put her in a safe place and get her away from him.
[00:21:30 ]
SKYE: Sharon did go to Heather saying it was the first time in her life that she was opening up about her father and Heather straight out said, "I'm pretty sure your dad is doing inappropriate things to you."
[00:21:43 ]
HEATHER: When she confided in me, my heart dropped. And she told me he was her stepfather. It hit me like a ton of bricks because then it was real.
[00:22:05 ]
SKYE: This was the first time that Sharon had told anyone that Warren was her stepfather. This hit home for Heather because her abuser was her stepfather too.
[00:22:18 ]
HEATHER: Sharon had that look on her face that was dread. It was shame. It was embarrassment. It was all of that. And she usually never registered any emotion on her face. And she said, "Yes, he has abused me my whole life. He molested me. I had to see his friends but if I ever leave him he's gonna kill me and he will kill Michael."
[00:22:48 ]
SKYE: Sharon had no way of leaving her situation. And as Rosario says, "The threats of violence begin to escalate when the trafficker feels he might be losing control."
[00:23:00 ]
ROSARIO: Here, you have an individual who has shame and guilt involving an environment of violence being told, "If you do something like run away or leave me, I will kill you. You will be dead if you decide to leave." And that was the end goal for her. To have an open door, but never to be able to walk out. I don't need to threaten you because you will never walk out. You know why? Because that trafficker, that abuser is not going to take it. He will never lose control and power.
[00:23:53 ]
HEATHER: She never discussed this before with anyone. This was the first time she talked about it and she was instantly terrified. As soon as she told me, she felt so vulnerable that--and I saw the terror in her eyes. It was--it was just awful. When she disclosed that to me, she was just unloading everything and then tried to minimize it by saying that it wasn't happening anymore. She knew what was happening to her was wrong but the sad thing is she cared for him still, no matter what he did to her, she still cared for him.
[00:24:38 ]
SKYE: In December, 1988, Warren, Sharon, and Michael went on a trip to Louisville, Kentucky, same place Warren told Heather he had Sharon dancing in clubs at 12. Exactly how long they planned to stay or even why they were there is still unknown. Shortly before Christmas, Jenny who hadn't heard from Sharon for months got a call from Warren. He was in the apartment they'd rented, but Sharon was gone.
[00:25:10 ]
JENNY: I got a call from Warren and he said, "I'm trying to find Sharon, you know? Do you know where she is?" And I said, "No." And he's like, "Well, she's run away from home. I think she's headed your way. I've got a-I've got her baby here, Michael, who's starving and wants his mama and I can't find her." That was the last time I talked to either one of them.
[00:25:38 ]
SKYE: Warren did find Sharon on Christmas Eve. He received a call from the hospital in Louisville. She'd been found in their car, alone and unconscious after a drug overdose. After being revived, she refused to disclose anything about what had happened. Medical tests showed that Sharon was between one and two months pregnant. She also wouldn't reveal who the father was. Maybe she didn't know. She never spoke about that night with anyone or disclose whether she did or didn't attempt to flee or end her life. Warren signed Sharon out of the hospital and they returned to Tampa.
[00:26:17 ]
ROSARIO: You know, a lot of people get caught up with the why, right? Why they don't leave. Why are they not able to get out, right? Is truly a difficult question to answer for any survivor or any victim of human trafficking. For many victims, after living a whole life of abuse, the child can grow up believing that this is what life is. This is what life is supposed to be like.
[00:26:52 ]
SKYE: Rosario describes the process of exiting a life of trafficking as a maze, a labyrinth of dead ends that convinced the victim that leaving is impossible. Warren, Sharon, and Michael returned to Tampa and by early January, Sharon was back at Mons Venus.
[00:27:11 ]
HEATHER: They just took a vacation so I disconnected myself from them and that's where Cheryl Commesso came in.
[00:27:24 ]
MICHELLE: Cheryl would come over to Sharon and Warren's house, like, one to three times a week. When she'd come through the trailer park, you know, she'd see me and my best friend at the pool and wave and--or we would already be there and she'd be like, "Hey." And, you know, just talk and stuff. And she was very friendly. Very nice.
[00:27:47 ]
SKYE: Cheryl Commesso was 18 when she started work at Mons Venus. She and Sharon, who was 19 by then, became close friends. Cheryl drove a red Corvette and dreamed of modeling for Playboy but, like Sharon, she kept to herself.
[00:28:03 ]
HEATHER: She didn't do parties. She didn't do dates. Cheryl wasn't setting up any parties like that. She was just going to the club and working and then leaving.
[00:28:15 ]
SKYE: After a few weeks at Mons Venus, Cheryl moved into Sharon and Warren's trailer.
[00:28:20 ]
MICHELLE: A girl comes to me and says, "Hey, I see Cheryl and Sharon at the beach with Warren and he is videotaping them." He went put in a video and that's when I saw Sharon and Cheryl on the beach without tops and dancing. And it was that look that they weren't having fun, you know what I mean? And I just remember sitting there going, "That's Sharon. Is he recording his own daughter?" And then it was like he realized, "Oh, shit, I need to, you know, you don't ever talk about this. This is not something, you know, that was just fun, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I was just like, "Okay." And that was when, like, he took out his bat--baton out from behind his couch and started talking all kinds of crazy shit. And I was just like, "Yeah, I-I gotta go. My curfew's up."
[00:29:40 ]
SKYE: Heather says that when they first met, she tried to warn Cheryl about Warren and Sharon, but Cheryl was an adult and Heather didn't feel she should interfere. But when the dancers at the club told her about the photo shoot on the beach, Heather says she had to confront Cheryl.
[00:29:57 ]
HEATHER: I tell Cheryl, "What are you doing? Why would you be on the beach with him like that? You--you know you don't let people take pictures or film you and I can't protect you. He's not gonna submit something to Playboy and get you a photo shoot. This guy--this guy doesn't have that."
[00:30:23 ]
SKYE: Heather's warnings were too late. Behind the scenes, animosity had grown between Cheryl, Warren, and Sharon. Something had happened to make Cheryl call social services and say that Sharon wasn't declaring her earnings at the club. Sharon and Warren were collecting welfare and when social services learned that Sharon also worked at Mons Venus, they cut off Michael's Medicaid. It wasn't just about losing support for Michael. Another baby was coming. Cheryl was messing with Warren's money now and he was furious.
[00:30:59 ]
HEATHER: The next time I see Cheryl, she has a bruise on her face. She has marks on her neck and she tells me what happened. She went out on the boat with him. He was more aggressive and more violent with her. And so she was fighting him and trying to get away from him. Cheryl felt like he was going to kill her because he punched her in the face. He was choking her. So she jumped over the edge and over the boat and she swam a very long time. That was the same night that I walked out into the parking lot and he and Cheryl were in a heated fight. He was in the car and she was maybe four feet away and my roommate and I, we--we were just walking out. I ran over there and put myself in between them and he and I had words. I-I basically told him, "You're not gonna get your hands on her and you need to stay away from her. I know what you did." And he called me a bunch of really bad names. And revved with his car, and he like, he was gonna hit me with the car.
[00:32:29 ]
SKYE: Heather went to the bouncers and Warren was banned from the parking lot. He was no longer allowed to be anywhere near the club. When Sharon finished work, she had to walk down the block to meet him.
[00:32:42 ]
HEATHER: Everything happened to try to protect Cheryl but Cheryl disappears and we don't know what happened to her.
[00:32:58 ]
SKYE: Cheryl leaving didn't seem that unusual to anyone at Mons Venus. With all the police raids still going on, there was a high turnover of dancers. Some women just stayed away hoping the arrests would stop while others were going to other cities. It was just kind of the business. So when Cheryl's Corvette was found out by the airport, everybody assumed that's what she was doing, moving where the money was. Within days, Sharon and Warren were on the move too. Michael had just turned one and Sharon was seven months into her third pregnancy.
[00:33:33 ]
HEATHER: When Sharon left, I-I didn't know until she just didn't show up for work. She never said anything. Warren was saying that they were going to leave. He was taking her someplace else. He felt like they needed to move along. I felt that it was because there was so much heat coming down.
[00:34:02 ]
MICHELLE: All of a sudden, they had to go out of town and they asked if I could collect the mail and keep my eyes on the trailer. And I remember him calling my mom in a rage and he was like, "I need to speak to your mom." And I remember him yelling and my mom going out to the--the mail and pulling out specific pieces of mail and giving him information off of it. And then when he was all done, he said, "I need you to burn all that ‘cause I don't want it to get in the wrong hands." And my mom was like, "Okay, you want me--I can mail it to you." He's like, "Nope, just burn it, just burn it." She was like, "Okay." So she burnt it. And, like, within 24 hours, that's when the detective came and was asking me if I knew Sharon and Warren Marshall.
[00:34:48 ]
SKYE: Coming up on episode three of "Girl in the Picture".
[00:34:53 ]
KAREN: She was just scared. She didn't know what was next.
[00:34:59 ]
HEATHER: He became very vicious. It was really scary time.
[00:35:05 ]
BILLY CARTER: You know, he should be in prison a long time ago for a long time.
[00:35:12 ]
Is there something that I should know with this couple because it looks strange?
[00:35:21 ]
It was gonna happen even if he had to die doing it.
[00:35:26 ]
MICHELLE: Why would somebody blow up their own trailer? What the--and they were just gone.
[00:35:46 ]
SKYE: "Girl in the Picture" podcast is brought to you by Netflix and Main Event Media narrated by me, Skye Borgman. Written and produced by Anna Priestland. Executive produced by Emily Bond and Jimmy Fox for Main Event Media, me, Skye Borgman, and Matt Birkbeck. Music composition by Jimmy Stouffer. Sound edited by Joel Porter. Sound designed and mixed by Reed Thomas Lawrence based on the books "A Beautiful Child" and "Finding Sharon" by Matt Birkbeck.