Corrections officers: Gillmore may kill next time

DA, victim vow lawsuit if state board grants rapist’s parole

By Mara Stine

The Gresham Outlook, Jul 3, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

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Two female corrections officers who work with serial rapist Richard T. Gillmore say he has not reformed and will not only rape again, but will kill future victims to eliminate witnesses.

Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Russ Ratto, who successfully prosecuted Gillmore in 1987 for raping then 13-year-old Tiffany Edens of Troutdale, is encouraging those who’ve worked with Gillmore in prison to come forward with their accounts of the man who says he’s reformed and will never rape again.

If the state parole board approves Gillmore’s latest request for parole, Ratto said he and Edens will “undoubtedly,” sue the board a second time because it once again failed to outline the specifics of Gillmore’s treatment or supervision plans, as ordered by a Marion County judge in January.

“How can we rebut whether Mr. Gillmore ‘can be adequately controlled with the supervision and mental health treatment and that the necessary resources for supervision and treatment are available’ when we have no idea what the supervision and treatment plans are?” Ratto wrote in a rebuttal to Gillmore’s testimony at his third parole hearing on Tuesday, June 24. “We do not even know what county (Multnomah? Marion?) Mr. Gillmore might be in.”

Ratto also outlined chilling observations made by corrections officers in the rebuttal.

In 1987, a judge sentenced Gillmore — the notorious “jogger rapist” who sexually assaulted seven East Multnomah County women in the late 1970s and early 1980s — to at least 30 years in prison. However, a parole board reduced the minimum sentence to 15 years shortly after he was convicted of raping Edens.

Edens, now 35, and Ratto sued the parole board last year when the board twice approved Gillmore’s release despite a psychological report stating he remained a danger to the community and was likely to re-offend.

In January, a Marion County judge ordered a third hearing because the board failed to give proper notice to Edens, among other violations.

Last week, the board held the third hearing in the Salem prison where Gillmore was housed. This week Gillmore was transferred to the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem and was placed on administrative segregation, which is reserved for inmates who are being protected from other inmates or for the protection of prison staff.

The board accepted written testimony through Tuesday, July 1, when Ratto submitted his rebuttal, including the concerns of prison staffers. The board is now reviewing the testimony and other evidence, after which it will decide whether to grant Gillmore parole.

Following last week’s hearing, two female corrections officers and a man who supervises Gillmore contacted Ratto. They were not named in the document for their protection.

The male officer said Gillmore is not to be trusted, but the two women, both long-term corrections officers, had far more alarming opinions of his capablities.

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