PORTLAND, Ore. (Portland Tribune) — The victims of notorious serial rapist Richard Troy Gillmore no longer must relive their trauma every two years when he’s up for parole.
Oregon’s Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision on March 4 voted 4-0 against granting Gillmore any more parole hearings before his scheduled release in 2023.
The board also is releasing him on Jan. 1, 2023, instead of Nov. 29 of that year, when his sentence will be fully served, because of time off for good behavior. This allows the board to require Gillmore to have three years of supervised parole instead of releasing him without oversight.
This story originally appeared on the Portland Tribune, a KOIN media partner
On March 4, the board wrote in an action form: “… based on the heinous crimes the inmate committed, the devastating impact of the crimes on the victims, and all the other information in the record, for the safety of the community the inmate must have supervision.”
Conditions could include GPS monitoring and treatment requirements that, if Gillmore does not meet them, could land him back behind bars.
Parole hearings are held every two years, but under special circumstances, the board can defer those hearings for as long as 10 years.
Gillmore, 56, told the board in February he would not participate in his upcoming April 6 parole hearing. He also declined to participate in his 2014 parole hearing.
This January, Gillmore received such an unfavorable psychological evaluation the board determined he is still dangerous.
“They’re giving us all they can,” said Danielle Tudor, who was 17 when Gillmore broke into her family home in Gresham and raped her in 1979. “I’m just thankful we’re getting as much time as we are and don’t have to return every two years for a parole hearing.”
Tudor is one of at least nine girls and women Gillmore admitted to raping in the late 1970s and 1980s. But by the time he was arrested in 1986 — for the rape of Tiffany Edens, 13, who he ambushed in her Gresham home while she was doing her chores — the statue of limitations had run out on the other cases.
After the Edens rape, police discovered Gillmore was the elusive Jogger Rapist, who stalked his victims while running through neighborhoods in Portland and East Multnomah County. He also was in the process of being hired as a Gresham police officer at the time of his arrest.
Gillmore was sentenced to at least 30 years with a maximum of 60. But a year later, a different parole board cut Gillmore’s minimum sentence in half.
After a few failed requests for parole, the board in 2007 agreed to release Gillmore, but failed to notify Edens of the hearing. Edens demanded a new one, but the board again voted to release Gillmore.
A yearlong battle followed, including a court-ordered third hearing and four more of Gillmore’s victims going public with their stories. The board denied his parole in June 2008, but every two years since then, he has been granted a new hearing.
If Gillmore is released in 2023, he will be 63 and will have spent 36 years behind bars.
Tudor is happy with the board’s decision. “We did get the best of what we could get under the circumstances,” she said. “We have to feel good about that at the end of the day.”
Tudor became the public face for the fight to keep Gillmore in prison when she testified at his 2010 and 2012 hearings, taking over for Edens, who’d succumbed to drug addiction.
In recent years, Tudor also has become an advocate for rape survivors. She has successfully lobbied the Legislature for an elimination of the statute of limitations on rape cases, as well as participated in a Parole Board work group that has adopted new rules pertaining to victims rights during the parole hearing process.