Kelly Matthews
A Mount Airy man is behind bars facing numerous violations related to alleged sexual assaults targeting children which began more than 10 years ago.
Kelly Lee Matthews, 40, of 410 W. Pine St., is charged with 22 counts of indecent liberties with a minor and 10 counts of first-degree sexual offense with a minor. All are felonies.
The charges relate to sexual assaults that were reported to have occurred between 2001 and 2006, involving two minor children who were about 5 to 7 years old during that time. “The two minors are kin to each other,” Capt. Alan Freeman of the Mount Airy Police Department said Thursday afternoon when the charges against Matthews were announced.
One of the two is a male and the other a female, Freeman said, without specifying their relationship. Due to the age of the pair, police said their names are not being released, although The Mount Airy News’ policy involves not identifying alleged victims of sexual offenses.
But Freeman added that Matthews was an acquaintance of the victims’ family at the time of the alleged sexual assaults, which police became aware of in recent months.
“Our investigation began last year,” he said.
Matthews is being held in the Surry County Detention Center under a $300,000 secured bond and will have his first appearance in court Monday, police said.
Reach Tom Joyce at 719-1924 or tjoyce@civitasmedia.com.
Just think about the case for a minute.
Why would the children wait so long to come forward and say that this happened to them?
Why didn't the children's guardian (sister) ever say anything in the last ten years?
Oh yeah that's right because it didn't happen. Plus he was overseas fighting for our freedom during most of this time frame.
Hopefully his attorney will do her job and get him out of this big mess, which all started with a crazy guardian not getting what she wants, so she gets her siblings to lie to the police to get Kelly out of the way.
I cannot say that the man isn't nice, because I do not know him. What I do know is that there have been many people in our society today, who do a lot of good for their community, yet still manage to hide their demons i.e.- Scout leaders, youth ministers, priests, doctors/dentists, public educators, the list is far too long.
If he really is innocent, I pray the truth comes out. However, if he's guilty, I'm glad the truth came out.