Activists Seek Help in Locating Released Rapist

Hoping to track down an elusive convicted rapist, two activist groups and several of his victims asked for help Tuesday in locating him and, in the case of one group, offered a $1,500 reward for information leading to his whereabouts.

Reginald Muldrew, who was released from prison last month and is believed to have raped as many as 200 women, “could be anywhere, and women have a right to know where he is,” said one of his victims, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Virginia.

At a news conference organized by a Pasadena women’s group outside the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles, several of Muldrew’s victims asked residents and law enforcement authorities to tell the public if the so-called pillowcase rapist is living in California and, if so, whether he has registered as a convicted sex offender, as is required by law.

“I’m afraid because he said he’d come back for me,” said another rape victim, who spoke with her back to TV cameras. “He held a knife up to my 1-year-old daughter’s neck and said that if he got caught, they’d lock him up, but when he got out he’d come back and hurt my family.”

The woman, who said she was too traumatized to testify in court after her 1977 rape, raised $400 of the $1,500 reward offered by the Women’s Coalition.

Susan Carpenter-McMillan, president of the coalition, said Muldrew may have followed the law and registered, or he may not be living in the state, but the group is offering the reward in an effort “to be certain.”

Carpenter-McMillan said that although he is not being sought by police, the group is within its rights in offering the reward because Muldrew “forfeited [his] rights the first time he broke into someone’s house and raped them.”

If Muldrew is found living in California without having registered as a convicted rapist, he could face felony charges and be put back behind bars, said Christine May, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.

Under state law, corrections officials are prohibited from disclosing registration status and locations of convicted rapists, according to the attorney general’s office.

Hoping to change that law, attorney Gloria Allred held a separate news conference Tuesday in an office on Wilshire Boulevard with some of Muldrew’s victims.

Allred and a few of the victims will travel to Sacramento in two weeks when a bill is introduced in the Legislature that would allow law enforcement agencies to reveal registered rapists’ locations.

“What good does his registration do the community if they can’t disclose it?” asked one of the women who will accompany Allred.

Allred said that after meeting last month with state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and asking him to disclose whether Muldrew has registered in the state, she “was appalled to learn that the public will not be notified of the whereabouts of the pillowcase rapist . . . or even of his registration status.”

Allred said she hopes that the community outcry against Muldrew will help pass the new sex offender bill. “If this case doesn’t change the law, nothing will,” she said.

Muldrew, called the pillowcase rapist because he covered his victims’ faces with pillowcases, blouses or scarves, was last seen in December in Las Vegas. He flew there directly after his release from Vacaville State Prison, where he had served 16 years of a life sentence for four counts of rape and various other charges.

Authorities in Las Vegas met Muldrew at the airport and warned him that if he planned to stay in Nevada, he would have to register there as a convicted sex offender.

Las Vegas police legally could not track Muldrew’s whereabouts because he had been discharged from prison, and “he completely vanished,” Carpenter-McMillan said.