Perhaps one of the most commonly used euphemisms is "companionship." That's what David F. Downey told police he was seeking July 31 when Ashley Burg, 17, was dropped off at his Limerick Township home after he called a go-go dancer he knew asking for an escort.
Downey, 52, has insisted that he never had sex with the Willingboro teen, whose body was found in Northeast Philadelphia, and that while he feels awful about her death, he had nothing to do with it.
The cause and place of her death have not been determined.
Still, as details of her fate emerged over the last several days, her story has pulled the multimillion-dollar escort industry from the back pages to the front pages.
Law enforcement officials say the escort business differs from street prostitution or the illegal activities suspected at some "massage parlors."
For one thing, it's more high-tech, with the Internet and untraceable prepaid cell phones making it more difficult for police to track down service operators. Many escorts prescreen clients to ensure they are not police officers.
To make a criminal case against escorts, prosecutors must prove that sex between the buyer and the seller was the goal from the beginning, not something that just happened after two people met and liked each other.
"These kinds of things are difficult to police, because it's not against the law to pay to have someone keep you company," Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. said.
"I think of them as call girls," Castor said of escorts, "but thinking it and proving it are two different things."
And because escorts aren't standing on street corners or operating illegal storefronts, fewer people complain about them. In Camden County, for example, County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi said that streetwalkers are seen as more of a problem than escort services.
