photo by: Kansas Department of Corrections

Sherman L. Galloway, pictured in 2016

In October 1981, a then-25-year-old woman sat in a public courtroom and described being raped and repeatedly sodomized by a stranger, who held her by the hair or with a knife to her throat throughout the ordeal. He’d attacked her as she was jogging on the University of Kansas campus, and dragged her to a treed area to commit the crimes.

The victimization left her “utterly revulsed and disgusted and sickened,” the woman told the Journal-World after the trial. Her rapist was convicted, and she looked forward to putting the traumatizing chapter behind her and starting over again.

What she didn’t think about then was that Sherman L. Galloway would eventually be up for parole — over and over again.

Thirty-eight years later, Galloway is still considered for parole every few years. And victim Jean Rhea, despite living in California for over 30 years, is still showing up at hearings to say he should stay in prison.

“For me, personally, it’s important that I have a voice,” Rhea said this month, after speaking in person about her attack to the Kansas Prisoner Review Board for the seventh time. “If I didn’t participate, I feel like I’d feel more like collateral damage.”

Rhea said she made a decision back when she was 25 to report the crime and participate in Galloway’s prosecution. Participating in his parole reviews has continued to be her decision.

“But is this exactly what I signed on for in October 1981?” she said. “No.”

•••

Rhea was not the only woman Galloway raped that year.

Rhea’s attack, which she described at trial and in interviews since, happened on a July night. She was running on Memorial Drive, heard a noise behind her, glanced back and saw a man running at her.

He pulled her head back by her hair, wielded a knife and told her he’d slit her throat if she screamed. She made a point to get a good look at him during the attack. She eventually struggled free and ran back up the hill to the middle of Memorial Drive, where a car stopped and let her jump in.

Police found Galloway’s wallet and driver’s license on the ground in the area of the rape, which, coupled with Rhea’s identification, helped get him arrested and convicted.

The Journal-World interviewed a then 25-year-old Jean Rhea in 1981, after Sherman L. Galloway was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting her after attacking her at knifepoint as she ran on the University of Kansas campus. Over decades since, Rhea has continued to participate in parole proceedings in hopes of ensuring Galloway stays behind bars.

During the investigation into Rhea’s case, Galloway also was linked to the rape of another KU graduate student two months earlier.

In that case, the victim was walking home from campus in the 900 block of Alabama Street, where a man forced her into a car at knifepoint, drove her to Clinton Park near Pinckney Elementary School and assaulted her.

Among other evidence, a set of keys and other items belonging to the victim were found in Galloway’s possession.

In Rhea’s case, Galloway was convicted of rape and aggravated sodomy, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records. In the other case, which took longer due to legal challenges, he was convicted in 1984 of rape, aggravated sodomy, kidnapping and aggravated battery.

Back then, sentences for those crimes were indeterminate, or ranges.

Now, for the same convictions, Kansas sentencing guidelines would mandate a set number of months in prison based on the severity level of the crime and the defendant’s criminal history. The Douglas County District Attorney’s Office explained that most modern sentences don’t include parole hearing dates, only release dates.

In Rhea’s case, Galloway was sentenced in 1981 to 30 years to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 15 years, according to the Journal-World’s report.

In 1984, the same judge ordered another 30-to-life sentence in the second woman’s rape, to run consecutively with the first, the newspaper reported. However, the judge said Galloway would still be eligible for parole 15 years after his first conviction.

•••

“When I first received my letter from the state and DA in 1996 informing me of his parole review and asking me for my victim impact statement, I was shocked,” Rhea said. “Frankly, at that time, it was re-traumatizing.”

But she had a lot of support and got through it, she said.

“I received my second letter in 1999 … then I got angry,” she said.

Rhea began to educate herself about the sentencing laws that had been in effect when Galloway committed his crimes but changed in 1983. She learned about the parole process. She started writing elected officials.

And she kept coming back to Kansas.

In 1996, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2012 and now 2019, Galloway has been up for parole, said Joe Phillips, KDOC’s Prisoner Review Board administrator.

On top of the seven parole proceedings she’s participated in, Rhea said she and her relatives also wrote letters when Galloway asked for clemency in 2017.

Galloway doesn’t have to request to be paroled; consideration happens automatically, Phillips said. Each time, the three-member board accepts oral and written public comments, holds a hearing with the inmate, then meets to make a decision.

If they choose to keep the inmate in prison, they also must choose how many more years should go by before he gets another parole hearing, Phillips said. Ten is the max.

Phillips said he could not release specific reasons the board has chosen to “pass” Galloway for fewer years — from one up to seven — between parole hearings. He said the board does apply fixed criteria to determine an inmate’s suitability for parole.

After taking public comment regarding Galloway this month, the board will hold Galloway’s parole hearing in April.

Galloway is now 59.

If he is paroled, he could be out of prison May 1.

•••

Both of Galloway’s rape convictions are considered together for his parole proceedings, though Rhea said the other victim has chosen not to participate in person.

Phillips said he could not release the number of comments the board has received regarding Galloway, or whether any of them were pro-parole.

Through the years, Rhea said she has never seen any Galloway supporters at the sessions she has attended.

However, numerous people have been there for her.

Nobody from the 1981 DA’s office still works there, but the office has sent one of its victim/witness advocates on its behalf, Cindy Riling.

“It is an honor to stand by and support a strong woman so horrifically changed by violence and yet who continues to stand up and speak so others may be protected from crimes this man could commit if released,” Riling said, in an email to the Journal-World.

Riling also quoted a letter opposing parole penned by current DA Charles Branson, emphasizing that Galloway had victimized not just one but two women.

“Although, I was not the District Attorney at the time this case was tried … I reviewed the files extensively,” Branson wrote. “Mr. Galloway’s crimes against these women were some of the most inhumane I have reviewed.”

Retired prosecutor Shelly Diehl of Lawrence spent some time on Galloway’s case in the early 2000s when he filed a motion for DNA testing, which failed to exonerate him.

Diehl said she’s spoken several times against letting Galloway out.

“I believe in the prosecution, and I believe that this is a person who should never see the light of day — his crimes were that savage,” Diehl said.

Two of the now-retired KU police officers who worked Rhea’s case were there in person this month, as they have been for past proceedings. Rhea said her siblings and a friend who was at her house after the attack attended, too.

•••

Diehl said it’s unfortunate that Galloway’s victim from so many years ago has to “keep coming back to fight.”

“I can’t tell you how amazed I am at the person Jean is — and it’s changed,” Diehl said. “She’s in a good spot now. Not so good before.”

After the attack, Rhea described having nightmares about a man with a knife and fears about going places alone.

Back then, there were fewer support resources for victims.

She left the state. She said she used alcohol to manage what would eventually be labeled post-traumatic stress disorder. She said it took her around six years even to get herself into recovery for her alcohol addiction, and longer to even start working on her PTSD.

Rhea feels like she made it through her dark period.

She’s now a licensed clinical mental health professional, she said. She switched from the software industry to mental health a little over a decade ago, and in her new career, the things she had faced became “positives” for her.

Finally, Rhea said the repeated parole proceedings have become less re-traumatizing.

Rhea said she hopes Galloway is not granted parole.

“No one should ever be considered for parole who is a sexual predator that does not have the ability to express regret or remorse, and has never taken accountability for his crimes,” she said.

Rhea knows that if he is kept in prison, another parole proceeding will be set.

“Yes,” she said. “He will have another one.”

What the parole board considers

To determine whether an inmate is suitable for parole, the Kansas Prisoner Review Board considers the following ten areas:

• Crime

• Prior criminal history

• Program participation

• Disciplinary record

• Physical/mental examinations

• Comments received from the victim, the public and criminal justice officials

• Prison capacity

• Input from staff where offender is housed

• Proportionality to sentence guidelines

• Risk factors revealed by any risk assessment

Source: Kansas Department of Corrections, Prisoner Review Board