SALEM, Ore. — Tiffany Edens and Danielle Tudor were in Salem Tuesday to advocate for stricter sex offender laws.
Both women are victims of Richard Gillmore, who was released in December from his more than three decade prison sentence. At the time, Edens put up flyers in the Old Town neighborhood where Gillmore moved into transitional housing as a low-level sex offender.
Speaking to lawmakers on Tuesday, Edens reiterated her message from December that Gillmore is a danger.
"He will kill the next victim," Edens said. "He will kill that girl."
Edens and Tudor worked with state lawmakers on Senate Bills 1022 and 1023 during the current legislative session, both aimed at issues that came up in the Gillmore case.
Senate Bill 1022 would require the state to consider almost everything when assigning a risk level to a sex offender, not just what was admissible in court. The bill, among other things, would also require the state to do a better job of letting the public know where a sex offender lives.
"These are rapists," Edens said. "These are sex offenders. These are child abusers."
Not enough can be done to protect the public, Edens said, and Tudor agreed. Gillmore raped Tudor in the late 1970s, but he was never prosecuted for it because it fell outside the statute of limitations at the time.
Senate Bill 1023 calls for people like Tudor to be recognized as victims and given access to information about their attackers, something Tudor struggled with upon Gillmore's release late last year.
"This bill really tackles all the obstacles we ran into,'' Tudor said.
Both Tudor and Edens said there should be no obstacles when it comes to the issues tackled in the bills, and they hope lawmakers on both sides of the aisle see it that way, too.
"This is not a party issue," Edens said. "I hope everyone can come on board with this because this is a community issue, a society issue."
Republican Senator Tim Knopp is also pushing Senate Bill 986, which would increase the statute of limitations for first degree sex crimes to 20 years.
None of the bills have been scheduled for public hearings. KGW will continue to follow their progress.