In April of 2025, the City of Columbus sued a Franklinton drop-in center for victims of sex trafficking called Sanctuary Night as a public nuisance. This narrative has been reconstructed from public records obtained from the Columbus City Attorney’s Office, the Columbus City Council, the Columbus Department of Development, and the Ohio Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services. In some instances, those records have been lightly edited for the sake of spelling and clarity. Part 1 can be found here.
The White-Haired Man
On January 2, 2025 a 43-year-old woman (in lieu of her actual name, she will here be referred to as Shelby) suffered a heart attack while driving with an acquaintance near the corner of Sullivant and Yale. According to the coroner’s report, Shelby’s passenger pulled her from the vehicle and attempted CPR. She died that evening at Grant Medical Center.
The cause of death was determined to be coronary artery septic embolism as a consequence of chronic intravenous drug use. It was not uncommon for Sanctuary Night clients to use the drop-in center’s location as a mailing address, and the coroner’s report lists Shelby’s address as 1195 Sullivant Ave.
Shelby’s death was a traumatic experience for Sanctuary Night, and for the surrounding neighbors who had long since decided they wanted the drop-in center to be shut down. Scott Carr—who was by then in frequent contact with City Attorney Zach Klein’s office about nuisance activities at Sanctuary Night—described residents and their children, still home on winter break, watching from their lawns as first responders tried and failed to resuscitate Shelby…