Rapist's death leaves victims haunted by threat of disease

liver411

The San Diego Union-Tribune



The San Diego Union-Tribune



September 24, 2001



Rapist's death leaves victims haunted by threat of disease

Hepatitis B may have been spread



Author:

Matt Campbell;  



KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE





Edition: 1,3

Section: NEWS

Page: A-11

Dateline: KANSAS CITY, Mo.





Index Terms:

CRIME

DEATHS

DISEASE

HEALTH

MULTIPLE

SEX



Estimated printed pages:

2



Article Text:

Nearly two decades ago, the "Westport rapist" terrorized this city by slipping through windows in the middle of the night and attacking women in their beds.



Now, even though the rapist is dead, those women may again be victims.



James E. Maynard died in custody earlier this year of chronic hepatitis B, a disease that is sexually transmitted and can remain dormant and undetected for years.



Women whom Maynard raped may have the disease and not know it, experts said.



"It is difficult.  It is digging up old wounds," said Molli Conti, associate director of the Hepatitis B Foundation in Doylestown, Pa.  "But, absolutely, it would be a good idea for any of those victims to be tested."



Maynard, 52, died March 28 at the Moberly Regional Medical Center of complications of cirrhosis due to chronic hepatitis B, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.



Maynard was estranged from his family.  Relatives did not even know what crime he was in prison for until after he died and they found newspaper clippings that he had saved, said his sister, Lois Crowley, of Columbia, Mo.



Crowley said her brother told her he contracted hepatitis from intravenous drug use in the 1970s, meaning he had the disease when he committed the rapes.  Crowley said she wanted the victims to know so they could take steps to protect their health.



"The family does care, and the family is sorry, because we didn't know," Crowley said.



The summer of 1983 was filled with anxiety and fear in the neighborhoods around Westport.  At least eight women were sexually assaulted in one month.  In most cases the assailant entered the home through a window in the middle of the night.



Maynard was arrested Aug. 4, 1983, after falling asleep in the bed of a 27-year-old woman he had raped at knifepoint.  Police said he cut through a window screen in a first-floor bedroom of the woman's home.



Maynard, who matched the description of the man wanted in the other assaults, eventually was charged with four rapes and convicted of two.  He was sentenced to four life terms plus 55 years, all to run consecutively.



The rape victims were age 20 to 35 at the time, making them 38 to 53 years old now.



"Hopefully, all of those victims got some counseling intervention at the time," said Paul Tamisiea, director of treatment at the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault.  "I think that would make a difference in their response to almost being revictimized from the grave, so to speak."



Tamisiea also encouraged Maynard's victims to be tested and to watch for signs of emotional trauma from thinking anew about past horrors.



Hepatitis B attacks liver cells and can lead to cirrhosis, cancer and death.  Most adults recover within weeks after the symptoms appear.



But a person infected with hepatitis B may experience no symptoms.  Usually the immune system defeats the virus.  A person may become a carrier of the disease and not know it.  The symptoms can show up later in life, even after decades, with no warning.



Detecting hepatitis B requires a three-part test that usually isn't part of a routine physical exam.  People who have it often learn they have been exposed when they donate blood, because blood banks test for its presence.



The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children be vaccinated against hepatitis B at an early age.



Copyright 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Record Number: UTS1621368









[ 此消息由 liver411 在 2001-11-29.05:07:14 编辑过 ]