Football star loses everything after wrongful conviction, now he’s revealing what his girlfriend did while he was locked away

Greg Kelley spent five years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. The 30-year-old football star was wrongly convicted of child sex abuse and lost everything. Now, he’s talking to PEOPLE magazine about his life with his wife Gaebri and their daughter Summer Rae. He calls the fight to prove his innocence “the biggest fight of my life.”

According to People, Kelley was a star safety for Leander High School in the Austin, Texas area. His high school sweetheart, Gaebri Anderson, was on the dance team. When he called to tell her he’d been arrested, she was at the grocery store and says she “blacked out” from the shock. At first, she thought the charges would disappear quickly. But the case became big news in Texas.

In July 2014, Kelley was sentenced to 25 years without parole. Gaebri was just a teenager when everything started, but she never gave up on him. She says she “fell in love with him while he was incarcerated.” They broke up for seven days once, but “it didn’t feel right,” so she came back to him.

His teammate likely committed the crime but was never charged

In 2013, just before his senior year, 18-year-old Kelley lost his football scholarship after being charged with sexually assaulting two young boys at a home daycare where he was staying due to his parents’ health issues.

Police never questioned other people who were around the children. Kelley’s first lawyer had a conflict of interest because she was friends with the McCarty family. In 2017, District Court Judge Donna King said the investigation was badly flawed and Kelley’s rights were violated. She threw out the verdict, saying “no reasonable juror” could have convicted him. In sports, when key figures suddenly disappear, it creates chaos and unanswered questions for everyone involved.

Court records later showed that “much of the post-conviction evidence” pointed to Johnathan McCarty as the real abuser. McCarty looked like Kelley and was never charged. Kelley was released on $50,000 bond in August 2017. Two years later, his conviction was officially overturned. An appellate court said “the system failed him.”

Kelley proposed to Gaebri in December 2017, spending all his savings on the ring. They got married in January 2020 with 300 friends and family there. At the end of their wedding, they danced alone, and he told her, “We made it.” He won $500,000 in a lawsuit against Cedar Park and two police officers. State law also gave him about $258,000 plus monthly payments of roughly $1,200. He used that money to buy a three-acre property for his mother, who had sold her home to pay his legal bills.

Kelley finally played college football on scholarship at Eastern Michigan University. For aspiring players looking to build their careers, finding top free agent talents can make all the difference in team success. He started the Vindication Foundation to help others who were falsely accused.

He now makes axe-throwing equipment, a skill he learned in prison. But he still deals with serious trauma. He says, “I have trauma. It haunts me. I still struggle. I am not healed.” He won’t go into a public bathroom if a child is there alone because he’s terrified of being accused again. 

Gaebri understands his fears and says she is “very grateful for everything, because it did make us stronger.” The couple had their daughter Summer Rae in 2024. Kelley runs ultramarathons to raise money for his foundation.