Minnesota man gives reward to girl he rescued

Earl Melchert is an avid hunter who often looks out over the grassy fields behind his property in western Minnesota, scouting for deer and other animals.

So when Melchert, 65, spotted movement hundreds of yards away in the grasslands one day last month, he thought it might just be a deer. But when the moving figure came closer, he saw it was a teenage girl, a face he instantly recognized from missing posters around town and local news reports.

For nearly a month, the 15-year-old girl from nearby Alexandria had been held captive in a mobile home by three men. Lured from her home by a family acquaintance, she was restrained, raped, threatened with guns and usually kept in a closet, police said.

But after 29 days of captivity, she escaped, swimming across part of a lake and running through a field until she reached Melchert.

He said he did what 'anybody would have done.” He called 911 and waited with the teen for deputies to bring her to a hospital.

Steven Powers, 20, of Mankato, and Thomas Barker, 32, and Joshua Holby, 31, both of Carlos, Minn., subsequently were arrested.

The girl's remarkable escape made worldwide news. Alexandria Police Chief Richard Wyffels lauded her tenacity, calling her an 'unbelievable young woman.”

Last week, about a month after the escape, Wyffels 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 said he wanted the reward to go to the teen and her family.

'It's going to the best place it can go,” said Melchert, to whom the money would have been a large sum. Only a week before, he had retired as an agronomy manager at the Elbow Lake Co-op Grain. But he told the family the ordeal gave him 'a new look on life.”

'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.

Wyffels told the girl and her family in the presentation of the reward, 'I look at Earl as a hero.”