15-year-old girl testifies man recorded sexual encounter

WAYNESBURG – A 15-year-old girl testified Thursday a 52-year-old Michigan man took video of the two of them having sex in March at Econo Lodge in Franklin Township.
“He wanted to take me away from Waynesburg,” she said during a preliminary hearing before District Judge Glenn Bates. “He told me he wanted me to run away with him and that he wanted me to be his sex slave.”
State police said Gary Wayne Melick Jr. of Commerce Township contacted the girl by cellphone just before 11 a.m. March 12, met her at the Marathon Gas station on High Street in Morrisville, and took her to the motel, where he allegedly had sex with her.
The girl testified she met Melick the week before at a local drugstore where her mother worked. She said Melick had been working on a remodeling job at the store.
She said she was at the store March 7, waiting for her mother to get out of work, when Melick took her phone and put his cellphone number in her contacts. She said she texted him that night asking, “How was work?” She told the court he replied and asked her to send him nude photos. She testified she did as he asked.
After three days of texting, the girl said he asked her to meet him to have sex.
“He said he wanted to take me to a hotel and have sex with me,” the girl said. “I told him I didn’t want to go, and I told him it wasn’t a good idea, but he kept asking me.”
She said when they got to the hotel, at 126 Miller Lane near the Interstate 79 exit to Waynesburg, they did not enter through the lobby, but went directly to his room, where she said he was living while he was in town for work.
The girl testified Melick pulled out three handguns and placed them on a table in the room, but never threatened her with them or pointed them at her.
“I thought about leaving, but I wasn’t sure what he would do,” she said.
The girl said the two of them had sex for about 45 minutes and he recorded it on video on his cellphone. She said she was scared.
The girl said when her mother called her to find out where she was, Melick dropped her off at the McDonald’s next door. The girl said she told her mother what happened, and they went to a hospital to have a rape kit done.
Melick was charged with statutory sexual assault and corruption of minors, and those charges were held for trial Thursday. He is free on $60,000 bond.