A Gary man is in custody in Porter County Jail and charged with 10 felonies and one misdemeanor after stealing a running pickup truck from a Lake Station gas station with two young girls in it and raping one of them in Portage, according to court documents.
Melvin Pumphrey III, 48, was taken into custody around 3:19 p.m. Thursday, according to jail records. He is being held without bond until an initial hearing at 9 a.m. Monday before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer, according to online court records.
Around 8:49 p.m. May 5, police were called to a gas station in Lake Station for a report of a stolen pickup truck, according to court documents. A man told police he left the truck running with his keys in it and his two daughters, ages 9 and 19, while he ran inside to buy a pack of cigarettes. The truck was missing when he went back outside.
Video surveillance from the gas station showed a Black or Hispanic man getting into the truck and driving away. One of the officers identified the man in the video as Pumphrey, who police recognized from an encounter in the early afternoon when Pumphrey was reportedly trespassing at a Lake Station business.
Pumphrey was sleeping on a bench outside of a restaurant and an employee reported him to police. He told police he was waiting for a ride and then borrowed an officer’s cell phone to call someone to pick him up after police issued him a warning for trespassing. He agreed to get off of the property while he waited for his ride and police left.
While police were still at the gas station investigating the theft of the truck, they found out the girls had been dropped off at a Portage bar. Police transported both girls back to the gas station. Police also learned that Portage and Indiana State Police had located the stolen pickup truck at a Portage hotel.
The girls were transported to the Lake Station Police Department for police interviews with their father present. The older girl, who was in the front seat, told police that when Pumphrey got in the truck she told her sister, who was in the back seat, to call police but Pumphrey told her to put the phone down. The older girl took her sister’s phone and kept it by her leg.
Pumphrey started driving toward Interstate 80/94 and the older girl said her sister was freaking out. The younger girl told Pumphrey she was going to faint and ignored her, documents state.
Pumphrey pulled out a handgun and told the older girl, “Give me the phone” and the girl complied because she knew the phone didn’t work.
When the younger girl asked where they were going, Pumphrey told her, “I’m going to drop you off at the next exit,” documents state. As he got off an exit in Porter County, Pumphrey threatened to shoot the girls if they didn’t stop talking because he needed to focus.
Pumphrey reportedly told the girls “I need a ride” and that he was desperate. He got off the highway and started driving in a neighborhood when the younger girl’s cellphone started ringing and Pumphrey said, “I hate when people lie to me.”
Pumphrey still had the gun in his lap so the older girl gave him her sister’s phone and he drove around until he was near a field and threw the girls’ phones in a field.
He parked near a white house and got out of the car with the older girl. The younger girl had to stay in the truck because Pumphrey said, “No, the little can’t come, she can’t see this” and took the keys to the truck with him.
Pumphrey made the older girl sit down behind a house and took out a small plastic thing and smoked it before giving it to the girl and telling her to “hit this” and that if she didn’t “hit it,” he would shoot her, documents state.
After that, Pumphrey walked the girl to nearby woods and told her to sit down, and told her they were going to smoke and get high. The girl told police Pumphrey tried undressing her but she told him she wasn’t comfortable. Pumphrey later pulled his pants down and forced the girl into a sex act.
After telling the girl that he does drugs and his life is messed up, he said, “Let’s go check on your sister, she’s probably smart and went to ask for help.”
The younger girl was still in the truck and Pumphrey dropped them off near where police picked them up in Portage. The two girls ran until they lost sight of his truck, and then told a man and woman what happened.
As the girls got out of the truck, the younger sister asked if they could take their belongings and Pumphrey “stated yes and for them not to talk to strangers,” documents state.
Police recognized Pumphrey in the gas station surveillance video from the clothing he was wearing when they gave him the trespass warning, documents state. The girls’ phones were later recovered from the field.
The charges against Pumphrey include one Level 1 felony count each of rape and child molesting; two Level 3 felony counts of kidnapping and one Level 3 count of robbery; four Level 5 felony counts of kidnapping; a Level 6 felony count of auto theft; and a Class A misdemeanor account of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
