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Was waiting for a bit to post this, to see if some new information was forthcoming, but I definitely should write about this now. There has been a major update in the investigation into the highly suspicious death of Monica Petersen, who worked as a Researcher for the Human Trafficking Center Graduate Program at the University of Denver, very shortly before her death in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in November 2016. Just a month later in December 2016, a single article appeared in the Washington Post about Petersen’s death, by reporter Glenn Kessler. The only information in the Washington Post article about the actual cause of Petersen’s death, was a single quote from Petersen’s employer shortly before her death in Haiti, University of Denver Professor Claude d’Estree. Professor d’Estree was quoted in Glenn Kessler’s article printed right after Petersen’s death, as saying that Petersen “committed suicide but the circumstances are not clear.”
It is *very* important to point out, that up until very recently, this extremely vague statement from the Washington Post about the cause of Petersen’s death in Haiti (“suicide but the circumstances are not clear") is literally the only statement I have seen anywhere in the mainstream press about how Monica Petersen passed away. It is therefore all the more significant, that we now have completely new information from mainstream sources, that directly contradicts what the Washington Post reported back in 2016. According to new reports, Monica Petersen did not in fact “commit suicide” in Haiti. She was murdered.
On 1/14/2025, the Ames Tribune, a Gannet-owned newspaper, reported about an upcoming anti-human trafficking event in Des Moines, Iowa hosted by the anti-trafficking group Iowa Network Against Human Trafficking. The event was headlined by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. At the event, Governor Reynolds signed a statewide proclamation stating January is “Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness" Month for the State of Iowa. Very very significantly, as the Ames Tribune reported, at this event Governor Reynolds also awarded “anti-trafficking service awards” to several anti-human trafficking activists, including “Ames resident, Monica Petersen, who is being awarded posthumously.” As the Tribune then states, “Peterson [sic] was a research fellow at the Human Trafficking Center and a member of the Colorado Governor’s Human Trafficking Council. She was murdered by traffickers in Haiti.”
I was also able to speak to a close member of Monica Petersen’s family (name not disclosed for privacy), who confirmed to me that members of Petersen’s family did in fact attend this anti-trafficking event in Des Moines, where Petersen received the posthumous award. The family member also confirmed to me that they had also learned that Petersen was “murdered by traffickers in Haiti.” However, the family member did not know any more information other than that, like if the “traffickers” actually meant “human traffickers” specifically, or possibly other criminal groups.
It is extremely important to focus on the fact here that this new information about Monica Petersen’s death, 100% contradicts what the Washington Post (quite obviously a major Newspaper of Record), reported was the cause of Petersen’s death back in 2016. A murder is quite obviously not the same as a suicide. Looking at the basic facts here, Petersen’s death in Haiti was clearly a very high-profile death. The graduate program that Petersen worked for shortly before her death, the Human Trafficking Center, was part of a very prestigious International Studies School at the University of Denver, the Korbel School, with many notable alumni. When you have such a high-profile death, especially in such a politically-volatile place as Haiti, it is all the more suspicious that such a massive contradiction emerges about something so central to the true story of Petersen’s death in Haiti: the actual cause of her death there.
Very significantly, as of this writing I have seen no statement or response from either the Washington Post or Post reporter Glenn Kessler, addressing this new information from the Ames Tribune that Monica Petersen was “murdered by traffickers” in Haiti. Consider again that it was the Washington Post, and only the Post amongst all the major newspapers within the mainstream media, that reported that Petersen “committed suicide but the circumstances are not clear” right after her death in 2016. This complete silence from the Post regarding its own massive contradiction in its own reporting, in my opinion only greatly deepens the suspiciousness about what the full, true story really is regarding Petersen’s death.
It is important to point out here, that in my previous three-part investigative article into the circumstances of Petersen’s death in Haiti, I talk in extensive detail about Facebook posts that emerged publicly after Petersen’s death. These social media posts by and about Monica Petersen, show clear evidence about the actual details of Petersen’s investigation into human trafficking allegations in Haiti, in roughly the 2015-16 time period. Most significantly, in a Facebook post from January 2016, in a Facebook post purportedly by Petersen, Petersen made two very, very significant claims.
First, Petersen claims that in August 2015 the previous summer, she personally visited a small town in northern Haiti called Caracol, for the purposes of talking to and interviewing workers in Caracol who worked for a very large textile plant in the town, called the Caracol Industrial Complex. Direct quote from Petersen: “Caracol is a garment exporting zone, a field site I visited in August to check out the conditions of the workers (conclusion: working conditions okay, working wages too low & below contracts & legal minimum wage in Haiti.”
Second, in the same Facebook post, Petersen also says the following: “I can’t say to what extent, but there is human trafficking happening through the Clinton’s [Caracol] Complex.”
As I point out in detail in my investigative article about Petersen’s death, there is evidence that the Clintons do indeed have extensive personal ties to this textile manufacturing complex in Caracol, Haiti. An article in Politico by reporter Jonathan Katz about the creation of the Caracol Industrial Complex, literally stated that Bill and Hillary Clinton “were instrumental at nearly every step” in the creation of the Caracol Industrial Complex. When the Caracol plant opened in Haiti in 2012, the Clinton’s personally attended the plant’s opening ceremony, where they were pictured in a group photo with a large number of Haitian factory workers employed at the plant:
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Putting the pieces together a bit more here: we know that Petersen made this very specific claim about human trafficking allegedly happening at the “Clinton’s [Caracol] Complex” in January 2016. Less than a year later, in November of that very same year, Monica Petersen was found dead in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. And now, thanks to the information supplied to us by the Ames Tribune, as well as the anti-trafficking event held in Des Moines in January this year that honored Petersen, we also now know that Monica Petersen was in fact “murdered by traffickers” in Haiti.
Supplied with all this information, I think we very much have a legitimate basis to ask some highly, highly significant questions about what really happened to Monica Petersen in Haiti. Since we know that Petersen was “murdered by traffickers,” does this mean human traffickers specifically? Or does it possible include drug traffickers, or other criminal groups, who were involved in the murder of Petersen? As stated above, Petersen was murdered in Haiti less than a year after specifically claiming that human trafficking was happening at the Caracol Industrial Complex. This leads to an obvious question: if the human trafficking ring that Petersen was allegedly investigating in Caracol, was indeed real, were the human traffickers allegedly operating in Caracol, Haiti also behind Petersen’s murder?
If Monica Petersen’s human trafficking investigation in Haiti really did threaten to expose the criminal activities of actual human traffickers operating in Haiti, clearly these traffickers would have all the motive in the world to want to murder Petersen, in order to keep their crimes hidden. Considering what we know now, I think that to truly investigate Petersen’s murder at this point, it is essential to follow up on Petersen’s own lead and try to figure out if a human trafficking ring really was operating in Caracol, Haiti, as she herself claimed before she was murdered by traffickers.
Furthermore, we can obviously not forget that in Petersen’s own words, she claimed that human trafficking was really happening at (in her own words) the “Clinton’s Caraol [sic] Complex.” Petersen’s own social media postings before her death, show she was very much aware of and deeply critical of the Clinton’s conduct in Haiti. She repeatedly derided the Clinton’s for what she considered to be their imperialistic, “crony” behavior in Haiti. For instance, Petersen pointed out in a Facebook post how Hillary Clinton’s own brother Tony Rodham, before he died was on the Board of Directors of a US-based mining company that literally owned a highly-lucrative gold mine in Haiti, the Morne Bossa mine, located very close to the Caracol Complex itself. Petersen openly speculated in the post if the Clinton brother and sister’s “intertwined” interests in both the gold mine and textile sweatshop in Haiti, is indicative of corrupt, “opportunistic” motivations on the part of the Clintons.
Considering all this, there is an even bigger, “1000 lb. elephant in the room”-type question that emerges here: what role, if any, might the Clintons and/or their political/business “cronies” have played in Monica Petersen’s murder in Haiti?? If human trafficking really was happening at Caracol, you have to ask the question: were the human traffickers allegedly at Caracol conducting their crimes “autonomously,” just acting as their own self-contained criminal group? Or were the alleged human traffickers in Caracol actually answering to someone or some group more powerful then just them? If the answer to this second question is yes, then which powerful person or persons were really directing the alleged human traffickers in Caracol?? Considering the Clintons deep, personal ties to Caracol, it is not too hard to perceive the incredibly dark truths this line of questioning may possibly lead to.
Mapping the “Silence” about Petersen’s Murder: University of Denver & the Korbel School
As stated previously, the Washington Post has remained completely silent about the news that Monica Petersen was really murdered in Haiti. Very notably, this silence has also extended to the University of Denver, Petersen’s former employer. Again, Petersen worked directly for this University as a Researcher for the Human Trafficking Center (HTC) up until the Spring of 2016, and she was murdered in Haiti later that very same year. Up until it permanently closed in Spring 2021, the HTC was literally one of the only, if not the only, graduate programs in the US with a curriculum focused on researching and combatting human trafficking crimes specifically.
Before it closed, the HTC was part of the Korbel School, an International Studies graduate program prestigious enough to have such notable alumni as Madeline Albrecht and Condoleezza Rice. I therefore find it highly odd that when the HTC program shut down, there was literally no press in the mainstream media about its closure at all. NOT one bit. No exaggeration, the only “press” I have seen about the HTC’s closure, was a single Facebook post announcing the HTC’s closing that was posted only on the Human Trafficking Center’s own Facebook page. Also very notably, the only public explanation I have seen given for WHY the HTC was permanently shut down after nearly two decades of operation, was a single statement within this same Facebook page, simply stating that the Korbel School “has decided to close” the HTC. Or in other words, no real explanation at all. For such a prestigious, as well as unique, graduate program, again why the near-total media-blackout about its closure? And why no real explanation for why the graduate program closed?
Significantly, back in 2022 I had a personal email correspondence with the Director of the Communications at the Korbel School at the U. of Denver (name withheld for privacy), regarding Monica Petersen and the closure of the Human Trafficking Center. Below is the email I sent to this person and their response:
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As you can see from this email correspondence, I asked very specific and detailed questions to this Communications Director. I asked for any specific details the Korbel School may have about Petersen’s human trafficking investigation in Haiti before she died there. I also asked for an actual, detailed explanation for why the U. of Denver and the Korbel School decided to permanently shut down the Human Trafficking Center. I further asked if the Korbel School and/or U. of Denver ever plans to publicly release Petersen’s Master Thesis that she wrote while attending the HTC as a student.
In response to these highly specific and detailed questions, all I got back was a terse, “boilerplate” response from the Communications Director. The Comms Director did not address my question about Petersen’s Master Thesis at all. The Director also notably provided me no information whatsoever about Petersen’s human trafficking research fieldwork in Haiti, either. The only information the Comms Director provided me about Petersen’s relationship with the Korbel School, were the two dates that Petersen started attending and graduated from the Korbel School. In regards to Petersen’s death in Haiti, the only responses I received from this U. of Denver contact, was that Petersen’s death was “… a private family matter.” Lastly, the only information the Comms Director gave me for why the HTC was closed, was that the program’s closure was “… due to a lack of financial resources” at the Korbel School.
The suspiciousness of this total “whitewash” of a response from the University of Denver, is only amplified massively by the much more recent news that Monica Petersen was indeed “murdered by traffickers” in Haiti. As the old saying goes, silence speaks louder than words. Considering this level of obfuscation and silence coming from both the Washington Post and the University of Denver regarding Petersen’s murder at this point, I would say silence is speaking a million times louder than words in this particular situation.
Now that we have confirmation that Petersen really was murdered in Haiti, I think now is truly the time to push forward with a real, honest investigation into the truth behind her murder. Let’s demand a REAL explanation for who really is responsible for Petersen’s death, and let’s demand that explanation from the Post, from the U. of Denver, and any other powerful institutions that may be complicit in covering all this up.
As MLK Jr. famously said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Let us hope that the arc of justice will finally bring us to the truth of Petersen’s murder in the Haiti, and the real truth behind her human trafficking investigation there. The people of Haiti, suffering for years now from brutal gang warfare and massive internal civilian displacement, demand it. The time is NOW.
SOLIDARITY, STAY SAFE!!!!
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