JOPLIN, Mo. —
She ran into the restaurant of the truck stop on Interstate 44 southwest of Joplin late Monday night wearing nothing more than a T-shirt.
She needed help. She had been raped, she told people inside.
She was just 12 years old and from Alabama, with a harrowing story to tell, said Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland. She was on a trip with her stepfather, a truck driver.
“They’d been together the last nine days,” Copeland said. “She said every time they stopped for the night, he’d assault her.”
She reported that she had just been sexually assaulted again that night in their truck parked at the Pilot Travel Center at 4500 Highway 43 when she saw an opportunity to end the nightmare, the sheriff said.
“He got out of the truck for a minute, and she ran inside and asked for help,” Copeland said.
Sheriff’s deputies were called about 10:30 p.m. to the truck stop. Delbert F. Glover, 48, of Town Creek, Ala., was arrested a short time later and taken to the Newton County Jail in Neosho, where he remained in custody Tuesday.
The sheriff said Glover could be facing more charges in other jurisdictions based on the girl’s account of their trip.
“We’ve been in contact with the trucking company and got his route,” Copeland said.
The sheriff said investigators are trying to determine the locations of other stops Glover made on the trip. He said they will be notifying authorities at those locations of the girl’s allegations.
Copeland said the girl’s mother was contacted in Alabama and came to pick her up Tuesday. The sheriff said the mother had given Glover permission to take her daughter on the trip.
Charges
Three counts of first-degree statutory sodomy have been filed against Delbert Glover by the Newton County prosecutor’s office.
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