Kathleen Ellyn/Chieftain Danielle Tudor makes her case for changing Oregon law to protect the rights of rape victims by either extending or eliminating the statute of limitations on prosecuting rape cases.

By Kathleen Ellyn

Wallowa County Chieftain

On April 15 the Oregon House of Representatives unanimously voted to double the statute of limitations for certain sexual assault crimes from six years to 12 years. Additionally, if the victim was a minor when the offense occurred, then the statute of limitations expires 12 years from date of offense or when the victim turns 30 years old — whichever is later.

The reason why this change in law was necessary was brought home to Wallowa County service providers just a week before the bill was voted through the house when rape victim and victims’ advocate Danielle Tudor came to town.

On April 7, Tudor spoke to an audience that included representatives of Oregon State Police, Wallowa County Sheriff’s Office, Building Healthy Families, DHS Child Welfare, Safe Harbors, The District Attorney’s Office, Wallowa County Juvenile Department, and Summit Church. Bobbi Duncan, executive director of Safe Harbors, organized the public event.

Tudor was assaulted in her home in 1979 when she was 17 years old, one of many victims targeted by a serial rapist, Richard Troy Gillmore, the so-called “Jogger Rapist,” in Portland. Gillmore was never brought to trial for Tudor’s rape or the rape of at least seven others — not because either victims or law enforcement had any doubt as to the guilt of the man arrested seven years later. In fact, Gillmore admitted to assaulting eight other women in the 1970s and 80s. But the statute of limitations had run out on those other eight cases.

Gillmore went to trial in 1987 for the rape of 13-year-old Tiffany Eden and was sentenced to at least 30 years with a maximum of 60.

But the parole board “redefined his sentence,” according to Tudor, and Gillmore came up for parole in 2008 despite the testimony of mental health professions who felt he remained a threat to society. Gillmore is currently held in the Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla.

When Multnomah County District Attorney Russ Ratto contacted Tudor and told her that Gillmore would get out without her testimony, Tudor wanted nothing to do with the case. She had spent years rebuilding her life, had not told her two sons, friends or workmates about the assault, and had survived by so successfully compartmentalizing the attack that she could not immediately recall Gillmore’s name.

She’d had to self-insulate. Before the assault Tudor was an excellent student, involved in multiple extracurricular activities, a devout Christian, a virgin, and a happy young woman with a bright future. After the assault, Tudor says, “It was too much for me to understand,” and she described an unraveling of life that is all too familiar to the friends and family of other victims. “I gave up everything from before. I was lucky to even graduate from high school,” she said.

Now, all she had worked to forget was back on the front page and she recalled a prayer she had made the night of the rape. “I’d said, ‘God, you have got to help me, because I don’t know if I can make it. If you help me I will help other rape victims,’” she recalled.

And now it was time to make good on that promise.

Both Tudor and the district attorney’s office filed lawsuits against the parole board for failing to contact victims prior to their decision. Those suits resulted in a reconsideration and eventual denial of parole.

Since then, Tudor has appeared at every parole hearing in an effort to see to it that Gillmore serves the original sentence imposed. Gillmore has another hearing in 2016.

Tudor has also been working to extend the statute of limitations on the prosecution of rape. Before HB 2317 Oregon had one of the shortest statute of limitations in the nation for such crimes, just six years. Although HB 2317 doubles that time to 12 years, Tudor would like to see it increased to 20 years or eliminated entirely.

Eliminating the statute of limitations is not an outrageous request, she said. Twenty states have no statute of limitations on similar crimes.

But it’s been a tough fight in the Oregon Legislature. The House was unwilling to extend the statute of limitations to more than 12 years and HB 2317 is now going to the Senate.

District 29 Senator Bill Hansell needs to know that Oregonians want that statute of limitations increased or eliminated, Tudor told the Wallowa County gathering.