CASS COUNTY, Mo. — A woman is telling her story after she says a former Henry County Sheriff’s Deputy raped her inside a squad car.
“It’s not a day that I wake up and I don’t think about what happened. It was the worst day of my life,” said a metro area woman FOX 4 is calling “Tammy.”
On the afternoon of July 28, 2014 “Tammy” says she was being taken to the Henry County jail to serve a 12 day sentence for shoplifting.
“I did a really stupid thing back in 2011, stealing from a Wal-Mart with some friends. I just wanted to make up for it and do the 12 day sentence and move on,” “Tammy” told FOX 4’s Robert Townsend during an exclusive interview Tuesday.
She says then Henry County Sheriff’s Deputy Kelvin Gaylord was driving the squad car.
“Just thinking about it now gives me the creeps. To this day I’m not paranoid of all police officers and I’m afraid to love any man. My life has changed forever and I’m sure now I will never get married,” she said as she continued to sob.
That fateful July day “Tammy” says she was in the back seat of Gaylord’s department vehicle.
“He pulled off the shoulder of 71 Highway going south and put me in the front seat. I felt like he planned the whole thing. I felt like there’s no way that I’m about to escape this. I’m dying here,” she said.
“Tammy” says Deputy Gaylord drove into a Cass County cornfield and first told her that she was going to perform oral sex on him.
“And at that point, he reached over and slapped me on my leg like you’re gonna be okay with it and I said ‘no I’m not!’ I couldn’t believe what was happening. I just kept telling him ‘you’re a deputy, you’re supposed to serve and protect, not rape somebody,’” said “Tammy.”
The frightened woman says Gaylord became angry, brandished his gun and threatened to go to her house and harm her two young children if she refused.
“I was so afraid. I didn’t know this man. I didn’t know what he was capable of. I do know that he made me take pictures of my breasts. The rage in his eyes, I tell you I was supposed to be dead in that cornfield,” she went on to say.
Minutes later, she says the 44-year-old Gaylord shouted a racial remark at her and then raped her in his squad car.
“I was handcuffed and shackled on the front seat. There was no way that I could escape or even fight for my life. He had his way with me! It seemed like forever and I just hate thinking about it now,” said “Tammy” as she wiped away the tears that were streaming down her face.
Cass County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Gaylord after a grand jury indicted him on charges of first-degree rape, sodomy, sexual contact with a prisoner and armed criminal action.
Henry County Sheriff Kent Oberkrom fired the 11 year deputy days after the allegations came to light.
Meantime, Gaylord is currently free on bond. When FOX 4 stopped by his lawyer’s office in Clinton on Tuesday, Attorney Eric Mitchell declined to talk on camera about the allegations his client faces. However, Mitchell, does say he and Gaylord will both go to court Monday for Gaylord’s next court hearing. “Tammy” says she also hopes to be there, seeing Gaylord for the first time since the alleged attack almost a year ago.
“I just want to see him up close. I’m tired of waking up and going through this horrible situation all over again. I want him to serve time. I pray to God that justice will be served. My life will never be the same,” she said.
