Woman’s body found in Everglades identified as sex trafficking victim

A body found Wednesday along Alligator Alley in the Everglades has been identified as Ivy Marie Bedell, a 20-year-old victim of sex trafficking from Broward County.

Bedell’s plight as a trafficked teen was featured in a South Florida Sun Sentinel investigation into child sex trafficking through the podcast Felonious Florida: Innocence Sold.

[ FELONIOUS FLORIDA: Hear the episode featuring Ivy Marie Bedell’s story ]

Trying to save Bedell has been a personal obsession for six years for her grandmother, Barbara Lechler of Deerfield Beach. Lechler has relentlessly pleaded with deputies at the Broward Sheriff’s Office for help and she turned over photos, social media posts and other evidence that her granddaughter was being trafficked since she was 14.

“They ignored my cries for help,” a distraught Lechler said Thursday morning. Deputies arrived at her Century Village condo on Wednesday to break the news that Lechler has been warning and worrying about for years.

“She was a baby,” Lechler sobbed, “and she was brutally, brutally killed.”

A Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman said Wednesday that the body of an unidentified, young white woman had been discovered in western Broward County along the portion of Interstate 75 that slices through the Florida Everglades. The body was reported shortly after 7 a.m. on the south side of the interstate at mile marker 42.

Broward Sheriff’s Office spokesman Carey Codd confirmed Thursday that the body was Bedell’s. He said an autopsy by the Broward medical examiner’s office “determined that there are no signs of foul play.”

“The circumstances of where and why her body was left along the roadway is under criminal investigation,” he said.

Results of toxicology tests are pending, he said, and the sheriff’s homicide detectives “are continuing to conduct an investigation surrounding the circumstances of Bedell’s death.”

Lechler said Bedell was trafficked for sex starting when she was 14 and that her life had recently been threatened by a trafficker.

[ INVESTIGATION: The sex trafficking industry continues to flourish in Florida ]

“He said, ‘You’re never ever gonna take her from me,’” Lechler recounted. “I said, ‘Ivy, get in the car now.’ She said, ‘He’ll kill us. Go ahead and go, Nanna’.”

Over the past year as the Sun Sentinel worked on its investigation and podcast, Lechler shared periodic updates with reporters, castigating local police for not acting on her many tips about Bedell’s whereabouts and her potential traffickers. She wanted her granddaughter arrested on outstanding warrants so she could be placed in a lockdown facility.

Last summer, Lechler was hopeful. With the help of private investigator John Rode, a former Miami-Dade police detective, Bedell was arrested by Plantation police and ordered to a drug treatment program. She said she wanted to turn her life around.

The last time they spoke, on Dec. 23, Bedell told her grandmother she was doing well and promised to stay in the treatment facility. Court records say she cut off her ankle bracelet the next day and fled.

“I am so upset how the system failed,” Rode said Thursday.

Lechler said she called Broward Sheriff’s Office so often, “they told me I could never dial 911 again. It’s wrong … what they did to me, let alone what happened to Ivy. … Please don’t let her die in vain.”

Bedell’s record shows that she struggled with drug addiction in the final years of her life. She had multiple arrests for possession of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine in 2021 and 2022, landing her in jail, recovery and eventually back on the streets.

Bedell was in and out of the Broward court system during those two years and spent much of it evading police. Judge Susan Alspector issued numerous warrants for Bedell’s arrest after she repeatedly failed to report for court-ordered treatment programs. She had a hearing scheduled for later this month.

The sheriff’s office said it needed more time to respond to Lechler’s allegation the agency bears partial responsibility for her granddaughter’s fate.

This is a developing story, so check back for updates. Click here to have breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.