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Why ‘Outcry’s Gaebri Anderson stuck by Greg Kelley after sex crime accusations
Greg and Gaebri Kelley were like a “Friday Night Lights” storyline come to life. The pair started dating after they graduated middle school outside of Austin, Texas, where he was a budding football superstar and she was captain of the dance team. “Back then I was attracted to how passionate he was about sports,” 24-year-old …
Greg and Gaebri Kelley were like a “Friday Night Lights” storyline come to life. The pair started dating after they graduated middle school outside of Austin, Texas, where he was a budding football superstar and she was captain of the dance team.
“Back then I was attracted to how passionate he was about sports,” 24-year-old Gaebri, nee Anderson, told The Post. “We went on cute romantic dates and watched a lot of Nicholas Sparks movies. He knew what his goals were.” They both had their futures charted in the NFL: Gaebri as a cheerleader and Kelley, who had committed to play football at the University of Texas San Antonio, would be on the big league roster.
But in 2013, their picture-perfect love story veered disturbingly off script. Kelley, who was going into his senior year at Leander High School, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 4-year-old boy at an at-home day care center owned by a friend of Kelley’s. According to police, the victim told his parent that “Greg” did it. The football star staunchly maintained his innocence.
And Gaebri did the unfathomable: She stood by her man.
“It was crazy. I had friends since I was a baby who were saying, ‘I can’t believe you are sticking by him,’ ” said Gaebri, who was only 17 at the time. “From the first day in my heart, I knew he didn’t do this.”
Kelley staunchly maintained his innocence, and had a chance to take a plea deal but opted to go to trial. Gaebri trusted him.
“I had no doubt in my mind. I knew what kind of person he was,” she said. “We weren’t really scared going into the trial. There was no way he was going to get convicted on the evidence they didn’t have. We actually had a trip planned for the next day.”
In fact, in the aftermath of the allegations, she felt her affection for Kelley deepening. “We started falling in love after these accusations. The way he handled himself; he was so positive, hopeful and persistent. It was so attractive.”
Kelley’s explosive case is the subject of Showtime’s riveting docuseries “Outcry,” which chronicles his harrowing six-year fight to clear his name — a drama that also divided a close-knit community and exposed ineptitude and blind spots in the criminal justice system. In 2014, the gridiron standout was convicted of the horrific crime and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
As Kelley sat in jail, Gaebri moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in the prestigious dance program Edge, at Kelley’s urging. She never wavered in her support, and they remained more aligned than ever.
Daily 20-minute phone calls, homemade cards and love letters, and “sheer faith in God” sustained the young paramours.
“Greg learned to draw in there. He would make me elaborate homemade cards and love letters that were eight pages long. They were so beautiful. The physical was taken away from us. Imagine not being able to kiss or hug the person you love. We had to fall in love with each other’s hearts through these letters.”
Letters Greg Kelley sent Gaebri Anderson from prison.
Courtesy of Gaebri Anderson
Letters Greg Kelley sent Gaebri Anderson.
Courtesy of Gaebri Anderson
Letters Greg Kelley sent Gaebri Anderson.
Courtesy of Gaebri Anderson
She flew home every other month to see him, while his mother, Rosa, and her parents visited him nearly every weekend.
It was during a prison visit when Kelley asked Gaebri’s father, David, for her hand in marriage.
“Greg asked my dad when he was in prison, which is a bold move,” said Gaebri. Her father cried and said yes.
After all, it was David whom Kelley first approached after he was accused of the crime to assert his innocence, and it further reinforced the family’s belief that he’d been wrongly accused. “Knowing how much he respected my dad and was so honest, from that day, my dad has supported him,” said Gaebri. “My parents have taken him in like he was their own son. They stuck up for him.”
The Andersons, along with Kelley’s legal team, would be proven right. A new district attorney was elected and in 2017, Kelley’s case was reopened. Evidence that was never presented at trial came to light, including an alibi that placed Kelley out of the home on the day of the assault.
Authorities also identified a new suspect: Jonathan McCarty, a high school teammate of Kelley’s, whose family owned the daycare center where the crime allegedly took place. At the time of the crime, the pair bore a striking resemblance to one another. They were also close. Kelley had lived with the McCarty family when his own parents were hospitalized with health issues. But the police did not investigate Kelley’s then-doppelgänger, nor did Kelley’s original defense attorney, Patricia Cummings, who a judge later suggested had a conflict of interest since she’d represented members of the McCarty family in prior cases. In 2019, McCarty was sentenced to four years in jail for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman. He hasn’t been charged with the child sex assault.
As this new information unfolded, Kelley was released on bond pending an appeal in August 2017. But his nightmare was far from over. Because of his record, he wasn’t able to get a job or move on with his life in a meaningful way. So for two years, Kelley toiled at the home of one of his legal advocates, doing yard work and odd jobs — with the goal to save up for a ring so he could propose to Gaebri.
Later that year, during a family trip to Cabo San Lucas, he proposed. “I had no idea. I could tell Greg was super nervous about something, but I thought it was something to do with his case,” she recalled of the moment. “But I was very happy.”
Then in August 2019, the pair moved to New York City, where Gaebri was training at Broadway Dance Center. On Nov. 6, Kelley received the news that he had been waiting for: He was officially exonerated. The moment, captured in the series, was “the happiest day,” said Gaebri. “It was a huge release.”
In January, the pair tied the knot in Austin, Texas, in front of 380 guests. Fittingly, Kelley’s second defense attorney, Keith Hampton, announced the couple for the first time.
Gaebri — who now works at a family-owned dance studio in Cedar Park, Texas — achieved her dream of being an NFL cheerleader, cheering for the Los Angeles Chargers in 2017. Kelley is still chasing his. He will be attending the University of Texas in the fall and attempting to make it onto the football team as a walk on.
“He missed out on some prime years of his life,” said Gaebri. “We don’t want kids anytime soon so he can focus on college.”
Indeed, Gaebri knows that love is worth the wait.
“I wouldn’t have done things any differently. All of the trials and challenges have made us into a stronger unit,” she said. “We knew it would be set right and corrected. It took time and patience.”
