Jean Rhea recently received an unsettling letter from the Kansas Parole Board.

Convicted felon Sherman L. Galloway will always be on the mind of his victim, Jean Rhea, who continues to fight to keep him incarcerated long after she left the state. On Dec. 4, 1981, Galloway was convicted of sodomizing and raping Rhea, who at the time was a Kansas University student. Galloway is up for a special parole hearing Tuesday.

The letter informed the California resident that Sherman L. Galloway, who was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for sodomizing and raping her on Kansas University’s campus, had been authorized a special parole hearing Tuesday.

“Twenty-six years ago, when I went through this process, I was told that I would be kept safe. And when I receive a letter like this, I don’t know what the parole board is thinking,” Rhea said.

Neither does Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson, who was notified by Rhea about the hearing.

He wrote a letter to the board about the sudden notification and lack of information.

This week, he still wasn’t sure what the special parole hearing entailed, especially because Galloway wasn’t scheduled to have one until 2010.

“The victim has, I think, lost a sense of security after all of this,” Branson said. “She is told one thing and something else happens. It’s been horrific.”

Libby Scott, administrator of the Kansas Parole Board, said because of confidentiality laws, the board couldn’t provide more information. She said Branson’s office wasn’t on a notification list, but the board would consider his comments as they work on “fine-tuning” the notification process.

In the letter, Branson said he vehemently objected to Galloway’s parole because of the “horrific nature of his crimes against not only one, but two women.”

Rhea fears that if Galloway were to be released, he would strike again; and although she would like to forget about the violent attack, she is determined to keep him locked up.

With every parole process – this will be the fifth since 1996 – she completes a victim impact statement. Rhea’s family and law enforcement officials involved with her case also testify on her behalf, she said.

“The biggest thing is often victims don’t want to be known and they don’t want to be heard. And, by the way, I did, too,” Rhea said. “I just wanted to forget it and go on. But every time I would try to forget it and go on, I’d have to do a parole hearing. I’ve never been able to forget it and move on.”

Unforgettable attack

The parole hearing notifications only serve as a reminder of the hot, humid evening of July 8, 1981, when Rhea decided to take a two-mile jog along Memorial Drive on the KU campus. It was 10 p.m., and Rhea said she thought the street would be safe because it was well-lit and well-traveled.

“As I came around the Campanile and got up close to Snow Hall, I heard footsteps running hard behind me,” Rhea said. “As I turned to look, a hand grabbed the back of my head : and put a knife at my throat and a voice told me, ‘If you make a word I am going to kill you.'”

“And with a knife at my throat, he then drug me across Memorial Drive over to shrubs and bushes that were on the other side and up above Potter Lake. : He raped me. He bit me. But more than anything, he threatened to kill me every minute when I was with him if I didn’t do exactly what he said.”

At one point, Rhea said, she made a decision to fight back because she feared he would kill her.

“I got up and started moving away very quickly because I knew he was in a position where he couldn’t run after me. But he did. He popped up and he ended up landing on top of me and we rolled down the hill and we ended up in Potter Lake and he told me ‘I am going to kill you’ and I stopped the knife before it entered my chest. And I put my feet on his chest and pushed him off of me, which I don’t know how I ever did.

“And then I got up and I ran. He had his jeans around his ankles so he couldn’t chase me right off.”

Rhea, who was naked and bleeding, ran toward Memorial Drive where a passing driver stopped his car near the Campanile just in time. She jumped in the passenger side of the car as Galloway started running up the hill after her.

The driver, the late Paul Mott of Eudora, took Rhea to her home, and her roommates called KU police. She then went to Lawrence Memorial Hospital and underwent testing with a rape kit.

On Dec. 4, 1981, Galloway was found guilty of aggravated sodomy and rape.

Douglas County District Judge Michael Malone was the district attorney at the time.

“Jean was a very strong witness. She was one of the strongest and most attuned to her attack of any witness that I think I had come across in my years as the head prosecutor,” Malone said.

Another victim came forward after Rhea’s case. Galloway had robbed, kidnapped, raped and sodomized her a month before Rhea’s attack.

Galloway was given another sentence of 30 years to life in prison on May 25, 1984. He is serving the sentences consecutively. But due to sentencing laws, he became eligible for a parole hearing in 1996 and has been eligible about every five years since then.

Galloway has unsuccessfully tried to appeal the conviction in Rhea’s case, said Shelley Diehl, who worked as an attorney in Douglas County when Galloway requested DNA testing because of technological advances.

Diehl, assistant district attorney in Johnson County, is among those testifying on Rhea’s behalf.

“This man was given two 30-to-life sentences back to back,” Diehl said. “He shouldn’t ever be up for parole as far as I am concerned. For this to keep coming up, it just puts Jean through the wringer.”

Challenges exist

Sandy Barnett, executive director of the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, agrees with Diehl. Unfortunately, she said, laws and the sentencing of criminals are part of the many systems that victims, such as Rhea, have to deal with.

Barnett praised Rhea for reporting her crime.

“We must remember that most victims of sexual violence don’t report the crime or their cases are never prosecuted, so any benefit that laws, the courts and the prison system provide aren’t available to the majority of victims,” Barnett said.

But once victims report the crime, the difficult times don’t end, as Rhea’s case shows.

Rhea was a KU student, a tennis teaching professional and the women’s head tennis coach at Baker University in Baldwin City at the time of her rape. She was working to become a collegiate women’s coach and professor. After the attack, she moved out of Kansas and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I have had to spend tens of thousands of dollars on my own psychotherapy and care services as a result of this crime.” Rhea said. “I have lost careers. I have lost career opportunities. I have lost relationships. : It took me years to be able to transform this in my life.”

Barnett said perpetrators need to be held accountable.

“Advocate, family and community support need to be available for the duration,” she said.

Rhea said she is fortunate because she has the support of her family and Douglas County officials such as Branson. But she would like to see more support from lawmakers.

Rhea said there has been an imbalance of rights at the state and national level. For example, while incarcerated at Lansing Correctional Facility, Galloway has access to gym facilities, medical care, psychological services and some educational opportunities. Rhea has had to pay for all of her services.

“As a victim of a violent crime, I have not once received a penny of restitution,” she said.

Branson said in our legal system, we choose to punish, and hopefully, rehabilitate offenders. Along with that process come housing and education opportunities, he said, but those “have to be things that we do in a civilized society.”

Sadly, Branson said, “there’s no way to make a crime victim whole again.”

But Rhea is doing her best to make the most of her situation. She has become an advocate for victims of crime. Since the attack, she has earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology and works as a mental health professional.

“In my case, my biggest wound can become my biggest asset.”