Portlanders take precautions to avoid being attacked in response to rising crime
Some Portland residents worry about being physically attacked while walking in the city or encountering someone dealing with mental health or drug issues.
The victims of a serial rapist in the Portland, Oregon, area are outraged the man will be released from prison later this year and classified as a low-level offender.
"He was designated as a dangerous offender at trial," Danielle Tudor, who was attacked by the "jogger rapist" in 1979 at her Portland home, told the Oregonian. "I don’t understand how that puts him at a Level 1 sex offender."
Richard Troy Gillmore will be released from prison on Dec. 16 after spending nearly 36 years behind bars. He admitted to raping nine young girls and women in Portland, Oregon, and its suburbs in the 1970s and 1980s. He became known as the "jogger rapist" because he cased out the homes of his victims by running past them, the Oregonian reported.
Gillmore, who will be 63 at the time of his release in December, will be classified as a Level 1 sex offender, a lower-level designation. The classification does not require the county or state to notify residents of the area where he will eventually move to and live.
OREGON SERIAL RAPIST SET TO BE RELEASED FROM PRISON THIS YEAR
Convicted rapist Richard Gillmore is pictured during his parole hearing in Salem, Oregon, in 2008. (Associated Press )
"It’s something the community really needs to know," Tudor told the outlet of the classification. "I highly doubt that he’s given up jogging."
"It’s very frustrating. If he had been able to have been charged for all the rapes he committed, he’d never be getting out," Tudor told KOIN 6 News. "Richard Gillmore has probably had two dozen or more psych evaluations while he’s been incarcerated and he has never passed one of them. And in fact, they’ve always said that he is a very high percentage of actually re-offending."
Gillmore was transferred to a minimum-security facility in August called the Columbia River Correctional Institution to prepare him to re-enter society. He confessed to raping multiple girls and women, but was ultimately convicted in only one case due to the others failing to fall within the statute of limitations, according to the Oregonian.
The Columbia River Correctional Institution in Portland, Oregon. (Google Maps)
He was convicted in 1987 of raping 13-year-old Tiffany Edens in December 1986. She is Gillmore’s last known victim before he was put behind bars.
"I have been slowly processing the reality of it all," Edens wrote on social media after she was alerted by the state’s Victim Information and Notification Service that Gillmore would be released to subsidized housing in Portland.
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Most recent photo of Richard Troy Gillmore on the Oregon Department of Corrections website. (Oregon Department of Corrections )
A Multnomah County spokesperson, however, told the Oregonian that there were no set plans on where he will live. Fox News Digital reached out to the county Monday morning for any updates on the matter.
A judge in the Edens case sentenced Gillmore to at least 30 years in prison, with a 60-year maximum, in 1987. A parole board cut his sentence in half in 1988.
Gilmore last underwent a psych evaluation in 2016, the Oregonian reported, and his parole was deferred that year to 2023.
The parole board made its decision after reviewing the evaluation and determined Gillmore had "a mental or emotional disturbance, deficiency, condition or disorder predisposing him to the commission of any crime to a degree rendering the inmate a danger to the health or safety of others," the Oregonian reported.
Another victim, Colleen Kelly, added in comment to the Oregonian that the upcoming December release "has increased my anxiety the past few days."
PORTLANDERS ARE TAKING PRECAUTIONS TO AVOID BEING ATTACKED IN RESPONSE TO RISING CRIME
Kelly, who has since left the state, added that she’s "fearful for Tiffany as well as all women and young girls there. I am thankful to be out of Oregon."
Executive director of the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision Dylan Arthur told the Oregonian that Gillmore will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He will additionally be on active supervision for at least three years following his release, which requires him to regularly check in with a parole officer.
He could return to prison if he violates any supervision conditions before 2034, according to Arthur.
Richard Gillmore is set to be released from prison in mid-December 2022 after serving nearly 36 years behind bars, almost all of his maximum sentence. (Associated Press)
Arthur said he "understands and empathizes" with the victims speaking out against Gillmore’s being classified as a Level 1 sex offender. The convicted rapist’s classification was determined by a Static 99 risk assessment tool, which gauges how likely a sex offender is to re-offend. His age was also weighed when determining the classification.
"The Static 99-R is an objective actuarial risk assessment tool designed to predict a registrants risk to commit future sexual violence and is one the of the most researched and utilized sex offender risk tools in the country. Based on the scoring of the Static99-R Mr. Gillmore is in the low risk category to reoffend sexually," Arthur explained to Fox News Digital when approached for comment Monday.
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"That doesn’t mean he’s not going to be supervised by community corrections at a higher level," Arthur told the Oregonian. "Notification isn’t based on the crime you’re convicted of, but on your risk to recidivate."
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