Printer-friendly version Email story link

Free too soon?

BACK STORY • Serial rapist’s early release prompts outrage

By Mara Stine

Pamplin Media Group, Nov 6, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (65 Reader comments)

Richard Troy Gillmore

ADVERTISEMENTS

It was a typical Friday night for a teenage girl.

Tiffany Edens, 13, had washed the dishes, grabbed a can of Pledge for dusting, and rushed to finish her chores so she could spend the evening eating pizza and watching a movie with her best friend.

But Tiffany’s plans for that evening never materialized. In fact, her entire life changed that night when a man broke into her Troutdale home and raped her.

After the Dec. 5, 1986, attack, the one-time honor student and talented dancer who dreamed of a career on Broadway turned into a drug- and alcohol-addicted teen.

Over the years — with equal doses of class and grit — she’s turned her life around. Edens, still living in the Portland metro area, is married, a mother of three and goes by a different name. The Portland Tribune is referring to her by her maiden name to protect her identity.

But now, the 34-year-old Edens finds herself reverting back to that terrified girl left cowering naked under a blanket in her dining room nearly 21 years ago.

Two weeks ago, on Oct. 23, Oregon’s state parole board unanimously decided to release her rapist, 47-year-old Richard Troy Gillmore — a man who, after his arrest on the Edens rape charge, eventually confessed to seven other Multnomah County rapes in the late 1970s, including four others that occurred in east Portland.

None of his victims were able to identify Gillmore in the 1970s, when he was known as the “Jogging Rapist” because he selected, stalked and attacked his victims while out jogging.

Gillmore never was tried on the other rapes. Gresham police began talking to him and arrested him weeks after the Edens rape; Gresham police were familiar with Gillmore’s name because he was in the process of being hired as a Gresham police officer at the time of the rape.

It was during those interviews in the Edens investigation that Gillmore confessed to the other rapes, according to court records. By that time, the statute of limitations on a rape charge — three years in the late 1980s, six years today — had passed on the rapes.

A Multnomah County judge found Gillmore guilty of rape, burglary and two counts of sexual abuse in the Edens case in October 1987 — and sentenced him to 30 years in prison for both the rape and burglary counts, with a 15-year minimum on each count.

The sentences were to run consecutively, meaning he had a 60-year sentence with a 30-year minimum.

Originally, with credit for his time in jail before trial, that should have kept Gillmore in prison through 2016. But the year after Gillmore was convicted, in 1988, the state parole board overrode one of his 15-year sentences, saying that just one of the 15-year minimum sentences was “an appropriate sanction.”

That made him eligible for parole in 2001.

But the outrage that Edens and her family feel — and the outrage felt by the man who prosecuted Gillmore back in 1987, Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney Russell Ratto — extends beyond the issue of Gillmore’s minimum sentence.

Edens and her family and Ratto say they are angry that the parole board failed to notify Edens when the board considered, and granted, Gillmore’s parole request in September — even though state law requires such notification.

The October rehearing came after the Edens family protested not being informed of the earlier hearing. And, they say, they are outraged that Gillmore is being released at all.

“I am part of the system, and I think our system should keep dangerous people, people who are going to re-offend, in jail,” said Ratto, who, in a rare move for a prosecuting attorney, attended Gillmore’s October parole hearing and opposed his release. “And there’s a system for doing that. You deny them for parole. … To me there’s no justification, period, for this decision.”

Protest triggers a rehearing

When Edens and her family learned of the board’s Sept. 11 Gillmore release decision — Edens’ mother happened to call the prison system to check on Gillmore’s status — they contacted the board to protest.

The board then rescinded the decision — its two-page statement said it was for “administrative reasons” — and scheduled the rehearing for Oct. 23.

Along with Ratto, Edens and her family testified at the rehearing, opposing Gillmore’s release.

“If a rapist is released and recidivates, he’s a rapist,” Ratto testified to the board. “If a serial rapist is released and recidivates, we have a monster on the loose.”

Edens told the board: “To have raped so many women is a travesty. But Richard Troy Gillmore only serving less than a third of his sentencing for only one of the violent rapes he committed is an injustice to me and the seven other victims.”

Gillmore also testified to the board, saying he is a different person than the man who committed the rape against Edens.

When Edens whispered to her father as Gillmore was talking that he still hadn’t apologize, Gillmore said: “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. … I ask that you try to find it somewhere in your heart to forgive me.”

With that, he removed his glasses and wiped away tears.

The three-member board — one man and two women, including an expert on sex offenders — then reached the same unanimous decision it had in September: that Gillmore has a “mental or emotional disturbance, deficiency, condition, or disorder” that makes him a danger to the health or safety of others, that his condition is not in remission and that the “inmate does continue to remain a danger.”

However, the board went on to rule that Gillmore “can be adequately controlled with supervision and mental health treatment which are available in the community.”

The board set Gillmore’s release date for Dec. 18, pending completion of his supervision plan. The date has since been changed to Jan. 18.

Parole board responds

State parole board officials answered a number of written questions about the Gillmore case with a written two-page statement released last week.

The statement said, in part, that state law requires the board to allow the release of a prisoner if the board finds the prisoner is no longer a danger, or if it finds that the prisoner remains a danger but can be adequately controlled with supervision and mental health treatment and that those resources are available to the inmate.

The board had denied Gillmore’s parole requests three times, in 2001, 2003 and 2005.

But, referring to the October decision, the parole board said in its statement: “In reviewing this case, the board took into account not only the historical information about Mr. Gillmore and his crimes, but also all other relevant information when the record is viewed as a whole.”

That information included his prison records, reports on his conduct, his work history in prison, and how well he responded to prison programs, including psychological and substance abuse treatment, the statement said.

Other factors, the board statement said, include his present attitude toward society and criminal justice authorities, his attitude toward his “previous criminal career,” and “other activities that would assist the board in understanding his psychological adjustment and social skills and habits.”

“The board determined that Mr. Gillmore had demonstrated that he could be adequately supervised in the community,” the statement read.

Nancy Sellers, the executive director of the state parole board, said that had Gillmore been sentenced under today’s Measure 11 guidelines, Gillmore would have served even less time. The maximum sentence for the two Measure 11 offenses on which Gillmore was convicted — rape and sex abuse — would be 165 months.

If released in January, Gillmore will have served 252 months.