Sex trafficking is big business. Globally, it generates tens of billions of dollars in profit every year. Here in the United States, it ensnares hundreds of thousands of victims. And while the stereotypical image of a trafficking victim is a foreign national, many of the exploited are underage American girls.

By the time Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison, his accusers numbered in the hundreds⁠—mostly athletes training and competing under the auspices of USA Gymnastics.

Christopher Bernard Wilder became known as 'The Beauty Queen Killer' during a frenzied 1984 spree, where he criss-crossed the U.S., luring young women into his fancy cars and dangling the promise of work as a model, if they would just allow him to take their photographs. Some took the bait. Others, he took by force.

For years, her name was treated as a shorthand joke: Lorena Bobbitt, the angry, crazy wife, a 22-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant who had cut off her husband John Wayne Bobbitt's penis with a kitchen knife while he slept in their Northern Virginia home. The June 1993 incident served as international tabloid fodder for months.

What causes adults to kidnap children? The perpetrators range from serial rapists to parents trying to protect their sons and daughters.

Journalist Robert Rand speaks with A&E True Crime about what really spurred the Menendez murders, Erik and Lyle's reunion behind bars and why he thinks they should be released from prison.

Gary Leon Ridgway, who raped and murdered more than 49 women, was obsessed with deviant sex and visiting prostitutes. This, combined with his aggression and violence, were significant driving forces behind his murderous actions, says Mary Ellen O'Toole, a retired FBI senior profiler who interviewed Ridgway.

Read an excerpt from the book 'Life After Darkness: Finding Healing and Happiness After the Cleveland Kidnappings,' by Michelle Knight, now known as Lily Rose Lee.

People are trading bitcoin for goods and services on the illegal marketplaces of the dark web, where the easy, instant flow of the cyptocurrency allows users to tap into their darkest natures--all from the anonymous comfort of their home computers.

Why do so many killers—Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz to name a few—abuse animals before targeting people? An expert provides insights on how the two behaviors are linked.