Police: No evidence that man killed by girlfriend’s father was involved in sex trafficking; suspect high on meth

Investigators say they have no “independent and verifiable facts” that a 20-year-old man found dead in a car trunk in October had sex trafficked his girlfriend as her father, the confessed killer, has claimed.

Furthermore, police allege John Eisenman, 60, told investigators he was high on methamphetamine when he killed Andrew Sorensen last year.

The arrest came just days after Sorensen’s body was found in the trunk of an abandoned car in Spokane. Sorensen had been missing for a year.

In court documents filed Monday, Spokane police Detective Randy Lesser wrote he “has not been able to document any independent and verifiable facts that would indicate that Sorensen somehow sex trafficked” Eisenman’s daughter.

The killing and sex-trafficking motive became a national story when it broke last month and even earned Eisenman financial support on a crowd-funding website for his legal defense.

That narrative of an enraged father exacting deadly revenge is crumbling as the police investigation deepens.

Court documents allege Eisenman told investigators he was probably under the influence of methamphetamine when he killed Sorensen and had been using meth daily around the time of the killing.

That investigation found that Sorensen, his girlfriend and two other people who are not identified in court documents, traveled to Renton, Washington, on the evening of Oct. 20, 2020.

On the drive, Sorensen, the girlfriend, who The Spokesman-Review is not naming due to claims of sex trafficking, and one of the other people in the car smoked methamphetamine several times, investigators wrote in court documents.

At some point, Sorensen dropped off his girlfriend and the two passengers at a 7-11 convenience store in Renton, telling them he would return shortly with the car, according to court records.

Sorensen never returned, and his girlfriend and the two other people were left stranded at the store, court records show. At one point, the girlfriend walked away from the 7-11 and ended up at a Chevron.

She called police from the Chevron at about 6 a.m. Oct. 21, 2020, and said she had been stranded after coming over from Spokane, according to court documents.

Renton police officers responded to the Chevron, picked up the young woman and took her back to the 7-11, where the other people she arrived with remained.

One of those people was a juvenile girl, and she was taken to a relative’s residence nearby, according to court documents.

Because the girlfriend and the other individuals were adults, they were not taken anywhere, investigators wrote. At one point, the girlfriend became “uncooperative” with officers and walked away, according to court documents.

The detective wrote he learned that Sorensen didn’t return to the gas station because the car he was driving had been stolen. In a Facebook message at about 12:45 p.m. Oct. 21, Sorensen told his mother he no longer had the car.

His mother tried to find out where the girlfriend and other friend were. At 8:21 p.m., his mother asked Sorensen if he had found his girlfriend. He told her he hadn’t, according to court documents.

Lesser wrote he found no information Sorensen ever met up with his girlfriend and friend again.

Two days later, the girlfriend tried to call Sorensen at about 9 p.m. but he didn’t answer. Twenty minutes later, she sent a message with multiple expletives asking for her stuff back.

Sorensen responded at 3:31 p.m. on Oct. 24 saying, “Why. All u do is run your … mouth about me.”

The girlfriend sent a message to Sorensen on Nov. 11 saying “hey” but Sorensen did not reply. He had been dead for several days, according to court documents. There was no mention of sex trafficking in the pair’s messages, court documents say.

Eisenman told police he and his fiancee, Brenda Kross, went to pick up their daughter on Oct. 23 and spent most of the day in downtown Seattle before returning to Spokane. The daughter was taken to Sacred Heart Medical Center just before midnight Oct. 23, 2020, according to court documents and police records.

Investigators said, based on statements, the woman was with her parents for most of the day Oct. 23, leaving the time from 6 a.m. Oct. 21 through when she met up with her parents unaccounted for.

Medical records from Sacred Heart show the woman told a mental health specialist that she went to Seattle with her boyfriend who left her there. She then told the mental health worker a guy said he could help her out, but instead of helping her, the unknown man locked her up, gave her drugs and sold her for sex.

She did not allege that Sorensen was the person who sex-trafficked her, according to court documents.

In a second statement made at the hospital, however, the girlfriend said she and her boyfriend went to Seattle and he dropped her off and was “selling me for drugs.” She then claimed she had been homeless in Seattle for three weeks and was trying to get home, but “they just passed me around,” according to court documents.

Investigators noted it wasn’t possible for her to have been homeless in Seattle for three weeks based on indications she had traveled there from Spokane on Oct. 20.

On Oct. 25, a police officer responded to the hospital to speak with her. A counselor told the officer that the young woman said she recently received an insurance settlement for $22,000, and that the money had been deposited into her bank account that Sorensen had access to through the bank app on his phone.

The woman told the counselor that they purchased a vehicle and drove to a 7-11 in Renton where she gave Sorensen her debit card and he withdrew money at an ATM before leaving her at the store.

She then said she was picked up by a man she believed Sorensen knew, the counselor told police. The woman said she was taken to an apartment and forced to smoke something from a pipe before being sexually assaulted by multiple men.

She told the counselor she didn’t want to speak with the officer or get anyone in trouble, according to court documents.

Investigators have not been able to identify the man who picked up the woman from the 7-11.

Eisenman remains in Spokane County Jail on a $1 million bond.

For the Sorensen family, learning the details of Andrew Sorensen’s death has been difficult, said his mother Theresa Sorensen.

“I’m sad that it all happened,” Theresa Sorensen said. “I’m sad that my son’s gone.”

Previously, the family was upset by Eisenman’s claims Sorensen was involved in sex-trafficking, which they said weren’t true and that the accused man’s family had raised more than $60,000 for his defense fund on a crowdfunding site.

Now Theresa Sorensen said she’s sad her son doesn’t get the chance to turn his life around.

“We had plans for Andrew,” Theresa Sorensen said. “I just wanted to be able to keep helping him make changes in his life to become a good, productive person, and he’s dead and I miss him.”