KEARNS – After a couple was arrested for allegedly locking their son in a “makeshift cell” for days, another person said he too was abused while in the care of the woman arrested by police – and he is not the only one.
Kearns resident Hayden Shewmake told KSL TV that Melissa Gray took care of him as a child. He said she was physically aggressive and violent.
Police said they also received information about another alleged abuse of another child, now an adult, by the father, Travis Peterson.
Both Peterson, 49, and Gray, 41, have been in the Salt Lake County Jail since their arrest on August 19. They are accused of abusing Peterson’s 13-year-old son.
According to court documents, the couple padlocked the young teenager in at least two different makeshift cells at their Kearns home and held him for anywhere from 24 hours to several months.
Investigators said the boy told them his stepmother beat him and that he once had to escape from his cell to go to the bathroom. He also reported being “hungry and lonely and having to sleep curled up in the makeshift cells.”
Two parents arrested after police found their child in a ‘makeshift cell’
“It just started with all the memories coming back of all the (expletive) that she did,” Shewmake said when she heard about the abuse case against Gray.
Shewmake, now 19, described Gray as his father’s partner for about five years, from about 2012 to 2017 or 2018, in a household where, according to Shewmake, his three siblings also lived.
He described numerous incidents he endured while Gray was at home, including being beaten, being thrown against furniture, breaking it, being choked by his shirt, and finally being dragged along the sidewalk.
Shewmake said he remembers feeling unsafe.
“I just wanted to run out the front door and never come back,” he said.
He stated that Gray’s alleged abuse also extended to some of his siblings, but none of the incidents were reported to police.
His father and Gray eventually separated, Shewmake said, and he hasn’t seen her since.
When he learned of Gray and Peterson’s arrest on Wednesday, he talked to one of his siblings about what they had been through and they thought of the 13-year-old boy.
“It wasn’t even just one parent, like it was with me,” he said of the new case. “Both parents (Gray and Peterson) were OK with what they were doing.”
The police report alleges that Peterson abused another son, who is now an adult. Officers said they received information that Peterson locked up that other son when he was younger, so long that the son had to use his dresser drawer as a toilet.
Shewmake described how speechless he was when he heard all the details of the case.
“I don’t really know what to make of it, other than… I expect nothing less from them,” he said. “I just really feel sorry for the boy.”
Peterson and Gray were both arrested for intentional aggravated child abuse. Gray is also charged with intentional child abuse causing injury.
