These three men are accused of horrific crimes committed against a teenage girl in Alexandria, Virginia. Police say that Thomas Barker, 32, Steven Powers, 20, and Joshua Holby, 31, kidnapped and sexually assaulted the girl over the course of weeks. The girl only escaped by swimming across a lake.
It was Barker who alleged convinced the teen to get into his car and then took to Carlos’ house. The 15-year-old teenager was kidnapped on August 8th. She was able to break away this week and knocked on the doors of nearby houses but no one answered. She then swam across the lake and found a farmer who took her to safety.
The three men face assault, kidnapping and false imprisonment charges.
Barker who is shown on the left was defended by his mother. She maintained that her son has cerebral palsy and uses a walker. She said that he is also married and has six children, including a month-old son.
An update:
” Last week, about a month after the girl’s escape, Wyffels called Melchert, commending him for his role in saving the teenager. The police chief told Melchert he was entitled to a $7,000 reward for helping bring the girl to safety — $2,000 from the girl’s family, and $5,000 from an anonymous donor.
But Melchert refused to accept the reward. Instead he told Wyffels he wanted to give that reward to the teenage girl and her family.
“Reward money means absolutely nothing to me,” Melchert said to the teenager and her family as he presented them with the money on Friday. “You guys deserve it, and I think it’s going to the best place it can go.””
““I just want to say that the good Lord put me in a spot that day that sent me home, made me look at the spot in my field,” Melchert said. He had left work that day because he had forgotten something at the house. For that reason, he was on his property just as the girl was walking toward him, still sopping wet from swimming through the lake.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/09/he-helped-a-kidnapped-girl-return-home-now-hes-giving-her-his-7000-reward/?utm_term=.37a3b408360f
Can you all please correct this post? Not Virginia.
No, Turley, Minnesota not Virginia!
i wonder how much the 6 ” little miracles” recieve each month from the taxpayers they’re certainly going to make the world a better place, i’m sure!
What kind of stupid woman/women would be willing to produce 6 kids with Barker by the time he’s 32 yo? Making more depraved people like him, and with such an awesome specimen of a mother. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
There’s millions of them out there–as the number of women who become pen pals with prisoners and later marry them shows.
If the victim gets knocked up by the rapists then they should do life in prison without parole. They need to have genitals cut off and stuff in their mouths. Their parents need to be sterilized. Any kids they have need to be sterilized.
They need to be thrown down a chiminey on a cold winter day when the fireplace is going full blast.
The perfect punishment woupd be to drown the three inbred cretins in the very lake that the young girl used to escape. Throw the walker in for good measure.
This is a nice town. There are sh!tbirds everywhere, even in nice towns. This was the lead story on local news. I’ve seen to much depravity in my career to be shocked, just disgusted.
I’m going to buy a t-shirt that says “Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.”
She swam across Thompson Lake in Alexandria. Fortunately it’s deepest areas are only 8′ and it’s only about a mile long and a block or two blocks across, depending on the location. Poor girl. It’s so sad for her and her family. There are knuckle draggers even out side of the Cities.
Virginia is named after virgins. Minnesota is named after a small soda.
Rifle Totter – Virginia is named in honor of Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen. You may be right about Minnesota.
Horrific crime and weird blog. Who is Carlos? As in “Carlos’ house”?
Carlos is a small town near Alexandria MN
They are accused, and presumed innocent until proven guilty. Mob rule isn’t becoming. Wake up. There but for the grace of god….
They need to be released on bail. Sooo… that they can be shot on sight. This is why God made rifles.
Anger, disgust, and revenge are my first emotions. How could these vermin actually be allowed to live after this. If they don’t do at least life without parole, then our society is deeply flawed. A statement must be made determining this sort of depravity. These mutts are broken; keep them away from society. Society demands it.
Are society is deeply flawed.
Please do not relate them to dogs. Dog spelled backwards is God.
These are three you would want to take home to mom.
That poor girl. My heart goes out to her. I hope she is surrounded by loving family and friends to get her through this. She’s got a long road ahead of her.
One would think this would happen in some meth-infested backwater. But nope, right across the river from our wonderful nation’s capital in progressive NoVa. Who’d’a thunk it?
You mean that isn’t a meth-infested backwater?
“The population was 11,070 as of the 2010 census.[7] Alexandria is located near Interstate 94, along Minnesota State Highways 27 and 29. Lake Carlos State Park is ten miles north of Alexandria. In 2013, Alexandria was picked as a “Top 10 Best Small Town” by the Livability website.[8]” I am sure meth is available there but the town is not known to be “meth infested”.
Actually it was in Alexandria, MN, not Alexandria VA. When I read the post, I wondered how these three mutts from Minn came to VA and kidnapped a teen girl for a month. Then when it said she escaped by swimming across a lake I knew there was something wrong. There is no lake in Alexandria VA! So I looked it up, and it turns out it all happened in Minn. A store owner in the community is quoted as saying that the men frequented her store and that they seemed “odd and mentally slow.” Well….yeah, just look at their mugshots! And the Minn press is reporting that Barker, whose mama naturally defended him, has an extensive criminal record.
No lakes in Virginia period, other than man-made ones. The geomorphologic processes which produce lakes are not to be found in Virginia.
That makes much more sense. I did what I should have done when first reading the post, and that was to click the link within it, which immediately brought up a “Twin Cities Pioneer Post” article including the much expected picture of a mobile home surrounded by weeds.