ALEXANDRIA, Minn. — As he looked down at the teenager standing just inches away from him with a smile as wide as can be, Earl Melchert told the girl he would always be there for her.
“Even if it’s just to talk, I am here for you. I am always here for you, forever,” he said as they stood outside the Douglas County Courthouse on Wednesday afternoon.
Melchert was at the courthouse to attend the hearing for Steven Powers, the last man to be sentenced for his role in the August 2017 kidnapping of the girl, who was just 15 when she was taken from her Alexandria home and held captive for 29 days.
An Elbow Lake Grain Co-op employee, Melchert had been working close to his home near Barrett when the girl appeared in his yard after swimming across part of a lake once she escaped from Powers and the other two men, Thomas Barker and Joshua Holby.
Melchert had told his wife he wanted to attend Wednesday’s hearing because it was the last one.
“I wanted to be there,” he said. “I wanted to see (her) again.”
Melchert said he has followed the entire case and the three suspects “got what they deserved.”
Powers, 21, of Mankato, was sentenced in Douglas County District Court by Judge Timothy Churchwell to 8½ years in prison, with credit for 499 days served, after pleading guilty in November to criminal sexual conduct and kidnapping.
Powers is also required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, and after his release will be on probation for at least 10 years.
Holby, 32, was sentenced Jan. 11 to a little more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty in September to two counts of kidnapping. On Nov. 30, Barker, 33, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree with a dangerous weapon and criminal sexual conduct in the first degree causing fear of great bodily harm.
Investigators say that Barker approached the girl at her home around 11 p.m. Aug. 8, 2017, and told her he needed help with a “family situation.” He was someone the girl knew from the neighborhood, so she agreed to help and got in Barker’s car, authorities said.
But Barker drove the girl back to the home he shared with Holby in Carlos, authorities said. There, the girl was restrained with zip ties, and the three men sexually assaulted her and threatened her with weapons. Powers became involved after stopping to visit the other men about two weeks after the abduction, authorities said.
The assaults continued over the weeks she was held and as the men apparently tried to hide, including at a foreclosed property in Grant County, investigators said. It was there that she got away, after the men went to town for food, leaving her alone for the first time. The girl ran for help, knocking on the doors of several homes and then swimming across part of Thompson Lake to find someone to help her.
Before he left the bench, Churchwell said he had one last thing to say, and that it was to the girl. Looking directly at her, the judge said, “You have my utmost respect for your courage and bravery.”
The girl’s mother read a statement from her daughter in court. The letter was directed at Powers, and it said what brought her to court Wednesday was his decisions. She did not want to be there, but said, “I wanted to prove to you that I am stronger than you.”
Her statement to Powers went on to say, “You will never bring me down and if you do, I’m strong enough to bring myself back up thanks to you three guys. You three guys made me stronger than I was. I don’t have to stay a broken girl because of your decisions.”
