Blue is a survivor. In his near decade of rescuing sex trafficking survivors in South America, Tyler Schwab of Afton, Wyoming, said Blue’s story is one of the worst he’s ever heard.
Now 18, Blue asked to be identified by her chosen first name. She no longer identifies with her birthname or her parents. The past is too painful, and she's now focused on her new life.
With bright blue hair shaved on one side, Blue spoke to Cowboy State Daily via video from a table in her back yard in Colombia surrounded by lush green trees and a cloudless sky overhead.
The tranquility of her new home belied the hardships she’s been through for most of her life and her hard-won quest for justice.
In Early October, Blue was essential in helping put her trafficker, Peter Francis Kennedy, behind bars in Argentina with the help of Schwab and his anti-human trafficking nonprofit Libertas International.
Kennedy, a shipping manager who is thought to have multiple nationalities, including the U.S. and Dominican Republic, was arrested in Buenos Aires on Oct. 3 by Argentinian police and Interpol on human trafficking and other charges.
Blue's testimony was paramount to Kennedy's arrest, Schwab said, commending her bravery in facing her abuser.
Schwab’s group has helped rescue more than 100 girls like Blue throughout South America, including providing them with essential needs like food, clothing and shelter as well as providing much-needed counseling and funding for school or to start their own small businesses.
Also helping Blue on her road to recovery is Thayne, Wyoming, resident Angie Jeske, who has become like Blue’s second mother.
Both Schwab and Jeske were devastated when they met Blue and heard her story.
Trafficked By Mom
Blue speaks near-perfect English that she taught herself after escaping her trafficker. She’s now learning French and Hebrew in school while also taking music classes.
She is studying musical production and programming and writes songs for kids teaching them how to say “no” and to respect their bodies and one another. She shares these videos on her TikTok channel Blue Gen (@blueg3n). Some of her videos have millions of views, including one with more than 35 million.
She knows what it’s like to be betrayed by people who are supposed to care about you. For most of her life, Blue was sex trafficked in Colombia by her parents, which Schwab confirmed as he and his group are working with Colombian police to bring charges against Blue's parents.
Her abuse began at age 7 when she was sexually abused by her father. At age 10, Blue’s mother began sex trafficking her to men for money. When she turned 16, Blue’s mother explained that she’d found Blue a job working as a personal assistant for Kennedy who was a manager for a shipping business.
The “job” had nothing to do with office work. Instead, Kennedy sexually abused her while also selling her to his friends. She worked 12-hour shifts for Kennedy, beginning at 7 a.m.
Even though her mother had trafficked her in the past, Blue had been hopeful that this new job signaled a change of heart.
“I believed her,” Blue said, “but the true purpose was to sell me to him.”
Her mother’s abuse did not stop with her daughter. She also found other girls to sell to Kennedy, who made them do unspeakable sex acts while simultaneously abusing animals and insisting the girls learn Nazi dogma, Blue said.
Within months, Blue said she couldn’t take it anymore. She feared that other girls would continue to be brought into the home to be abused by Kennedy.
“I couldn’t stand and do nothing,” she said. “These are very powerful people with a lot of money.”
Not sure where to turn, Blue went to the Colombia equivalent of child protective services to report Kennedy to police. The second she told them, the agency immediately called her mother and took Blue into foster care against her protests.
At the time, Blue was staying in a small apartment with her four cats. She begged to be let go so she could go home and feed them. The agency did not care, Blue said. Luckily, one of her neighbors, an elderly woman with a soft spot for cats, heard the cats mewing and slid food under her locked door so they could eat.
Blue believes her mother was behind keeping her locked up.
“My mother is so powerful,” Blue said. “I think she had connections there to make them keep me.”
After 15 days, Blue escaped and was returned to Kennedy’s care. Being with him was better than being locked up because she could at least take care of her cats, which to her, are like children.
Her mother warned her that getting locked up is the punishment for reporting crimes that don’t exist.
Arrest In Argentina
Blue continued to covertly try to get help. Finally, one of the police detectives told her about Libertas International that helped victims of sex trafficking. She contacted them, but it took some time before they earned Blue’s trust.
During her first conversation with Schwab, Blue explained she wasn’t having sex with him.
“Perfect,” he’d responded. “I don’t want to have sex with you either.”
Slowly, Blue opened up. Schwab asked about her cats and made it clear that he wanted nothing in return.
Schwab remembered being on an airplane when through text messages, Blue slowly began to open up through a series of text messages. Each continued to get worse as Blue shared Kennedy’s abuse with children and dogs and making the girls read Nazi speeches out loud all the while yelling at them in Spanish and Arabic
“So, he was a pedophile, trafficker, hurts dogs and is a Nazi,” Schwab said. “The only thing he’s missing is a cannibal, and then he’d be a perfect specimen from hell.”
After hearing Blue’s story, he knew he and his organization had to help rescue her and put Kennedy behind bars. He contacted his sources within the Colombia national police who took Blue’s report as she shared vital information.
She was the first of Kennedy’s victims to speak out, but to date at least three more have come forward, Schwab said.
Nabbed In Argentina
When Kennedy got hint of the pending charges, he fled Colombia, Schwab said, who believes Kennedy has multiple homes in several countries, including the United States.
He was finally nabbed by Interpol and Argentinian police on Oct. 3.
Interpol did not respond to request for confirmation of Kennedy’s arrest, but Patricia Bullrich, minister of national security for Argentina, posted news of Kennedy’s arrest on X, formerly Twitter.
“Look closely at the face of this rapist,” she wrote in Spanish. “This is Peter Francis Kennedy, Dominican and American, who had an international arrest warrant with a red alert from Bogotá, Colombia. This person raped children, animals and even made the children perform acts of zoophilia on them. A REAL MONSTER.”
She further stated details of Kennedy’s arrest by Interpol agents from Colombi and Brazil who captured him in Belgrano in Buenos Aires.
“I assure you that we will make sure this bastard pays for every aberrant act he committed. Law and order,” she wrote
Efforts to reach Kennedy's legal counsel were not successful. According to his LinkedIn page, Kennedy is general manager of Shiplane Transport, Inc. and president of Blue Ocean Line for 34 years.
Wyoming Family
Though it’s a relief that Kennedy is now behind bars, there’s a long legal battle ahead to bring him to justice, including extraditing him back to Colombia to face charges of human trafficking, bestiality and creation and possession of child sexual materials, Schwab said.
Schwab is cautiously optimistic that Blue and the others will see justice.
“We still have a long way to go, but with Blue on our side, I think that we’re going to make it happen,” Schwab said.
Blue lives in a rented home in an undisclosed city in Colombia where she can go to school and study and be in a safe, tranquil setting with her cats.
She also serves as the unofficial translator for Libertas when visitors like Jeske come to Colombia.
She has since disowned her own parents and considers Schwab and Jeske her new family.
Wyoming Mom
Jeske has known Schwab for years and is close friends with his aunt, Katie Roberts of Etna, Wyoming, a photographer and owner of Lampshade Studios.
Roberts promised Schwab she’d come to Colombia to take photos of the girls at a weeklong celebration event hosted by Libertas for about 80 survivors and their families in May 2024.
Jeske tagged along, eager to meet the girls to celebrate their bravery and provide them with much-needed support.
“You have to understand that many of them don’t have family support and are standing up against powerful men with lots of money,” she said. “We wanted to celebrate them and encourage them as lots are still going through their court processes right now.”
Once in Colombia, Blue served as their interpreter, and Jeske felt an immediate bond with the now 18-year-old. As a mother of four children, Jeske was heartbroken by Blue’s story and the trust betrayed by her own mother.
“It was such a complex and hard story to listen to,” Jeske told Cowboy State Daily.
Jeske was further devastated by Blue’s admission that she hadn’t realized that what her mother was doing to her was wrong because that’s all she knew up until the day she started randomly reading about trafficking and realized it was wrong.
“That really struck me because Blue has nobody now,” she said. “She has nobody, and I said, ‘Blue, I will be your mama. I will love you and I will take care of you.”
Making A Deal
Blue was equally touched. Jeske’s newfound motherhood was further cemented while one morning while they were there, Blue was robbed at 6 a.m. on her way to catch her bus to go to French class.
The robbers took everything Blue had, ripping off her glasses to disorient her, and plundering the high-dollar equipment in her backpack, including her phone, laptop and new keyboard Schwab had just purchased for her for video programming.
“They’d taken everything she had and ripped holes in her shirt,” Jeske said. “But she was just so strong.
She didn’t shirk her duties after the robbery, and instead, went out sightseeing with the group that day as their translator.
Blue’s strength impacted Jeske, as well as the fact that anyone would violate a girl who has already been through so much.
Jeske then made a deal with Blue to pay her to teach her Spanish three times a week once she returned to Wyoming. Initially, Blue balked at the idea of taking money from ‘family,’ but begrudgingly agreed when her new mom put her foot down.
And despite Jeske’s terrible language skills, she joked, the two continue to tutor weekly over Zoom.
For her part, Blue is touched by her Wyoming family and the fact that so many people have reached out to support her.
“Wyoming produces good mothers, that’s for sure,” Schwab said.
“I love them very much,” Blue said, smiling. “I’m very lucky.”
Anyone wishing to donate to help Blue replace her stolen laptop can do so at Libertas International by clicking "donate" link for "Blue's laptop."
Jen Kocher can be reached at jen@cowboystatedaily.com.
