Account of 4-year-old girl and YMCA video used in rape case against child care worker

Editor's note: This story contains graphic details that some may find disturbing.

A 4-year-old girl who had been taken to the Downtown YMCA Kid Zone told social workers that a man sexually assaulted her, and video from the YMCA shows a staff member in the Kid Zone striking the girl twice in the face before he took her into a bathroom, says a police affidavit released Wednesday.

The affidavit is part of the legal justification used to arrest 21-year-old Caleb Gaston and to charge him with raping the 4-year-old girl at the Downtown YMCA Kid Zone last month. Gaston also has been charged with aggravated indecent liberties involving another child at the same location.

The affidavit describing some of the evidence gives a detailed, graphic account of how the criminal case developed:

On Jan. 29, a 27-year-old woman reported to a Wichita police officer that her 4-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted at the Downtown YMCA, 402 N. Market.

The mother had left her daughter in the YMCA Kid Zone at 4:18 p.m. that day while she exercised. At 5:32 p.m., a female staff member in the YMCA Kid Zone called the woman and told her that her daughter had been hit in the head with a ball and wouldn’t stop crying.

The mother picked up her daughter and took her home. The girl slept on the way home, and the mother let her keep sleeping until 7 p.m. When the girl woke up, she had to use the bathroom. “While sitting on the toilet (the girl) told (her mother) that peeing hurt and started to cry,” the affidavit says.

The mother noticed three drops of blood on the toilet paper used to wipe her daughter, it says. The woman also saw dried blood on the girl’s underwear.

After being asked several times by her parents what happened and if someone touched her, the girl told her father that “the guy from the gym touched me in my [vagina],” the affidavit says. The girl repeated the information to her mother.

The woman said the daughter “had normal trips to the bathroom all day prior to going to the YMCA,” the affidavit says.

The mother took her daughter to Wesley Medical Center, and a sexual assault exam was completed, with a report noting “a laceration/abrasion … with redness on both sides of the laceration/abrasion.” A doctor reviewed the report and photographs and found the injuries were consistent with the girl’s disclosure.

The next day, Jan. 30, a Kansas Department for Children and Families social worker and Child Advocacy Center advocate social worker interviewed the girl.

The girl said “the man at the gym put his hand down her underwear and put his fingers inside her [vagina] and it felt bad when he did it,” the affidavit says.

The girl said “he did this in the bathroom while she was getting sick in the sink,” the affidavit says.

The same day that the social workers interviewed the girl, a Wichita police detective reviewed YMCA Kid Zone video recording the time that the girl was there.

The mother had checked her daughter into the Kid Zone at 4:18 p.m. Two YMCA employees were staffing the Kid Zone: a 26-year-old woman and 21-year-old Caleb Gaston, the affidavit says.

At 4:51, 33 minutes after the girl arrived, “the security video shows Caleb striking (the girl) one time in the face,” it says. Seconds after the first strike, the video shows Gaston hitting the girl in the face again “with an open hand and (the girl) began to cry.”

At 4:52, he picked the girl up and walked to the front counter.

At 4:53, the girl seemed to get sick, “causing Caleb to set her down and he brings a trash can to her. Caleb then takes her to the bathroom and closes the bottom half of the door and picks her up and stands her on a step stool in front of the sink.”

At 4:54, the video shows him bending over a little and “reaching for something with his right hand and then he steps closer and reaches down low with his left hand.” Seconds later, they left the bathroom.

Gaston adjusted the girl’s tights, and she sat on the floor behind the front desk and cried.

Gaston then stepped over and hugged the girl.

Later, the girl was held by a female worker. Another female worker came in at 5 p.m. and held the girl until she called the girl’s mother to tell her that her child had been hit in the head with a ball and wouldn’t stop crying, the affidavit says.

The document ends by saying that the girl never goes to any part of the Y but the Kid Zone.

Some portions of the affidavit were redacted.

This story was originally published February 21, 2018 at 7:34 PM with the headline "Account of 4-year-old girl and YMCA video used in rape case against child care worker."