It was March of 1999, and Naomi Swartzentruber was on her own for the first time. She had no one to call — no parents, no siblings nor the ex-boyfriend who coaxed her out to Minnesota in the first place. They met just after Swartzentruber left home in Michigan. She followed him westward, and he left her several states away from the family and community that once claimed her as a member.
There’s nothing particularly novel about a 19-year-old woman on her own for the first time, and like anyone in that situation, she was plagued by anxiety. She worried about how she’d manage to pay her bills on the slim salary she made working at a factory.
That November, taken along by a friend, she found herself at a strip club, first in the back of the venue, then suddenly on the stage. Wearing lingerie and dancing for a …