Rape victims could be victims again 20 years later

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The man dubbed the Westport rapist nearly 20 years ago after attacking women in their beds may have victimized his victims twice.

At least eight women were sexually assaulted around the Westport entertainment district in the summer of 1983. James E. Maynard, 52, was convicted of two of the rapes. He died March 28 at the Moberly Regional Medical Center of complications related to chronic hepatitis B, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Experts said his victims may have the potentially deadly virus, which can remain dormant and undetected for years. Transmitted through blood, bodily fluids, shared needles and from mother to child, the disease can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 1.25 million Americans have chronic hepatitis B infections.

"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 was estranged from his family. His sister, Lois Crowley, of Columbia, said relatives did not know why he was in prison until after he died and they found newspaper clippings he had saved.

Contracted before rapes

Crowley said Maynard told her that he contracted hepatitis from intravenous drug use in the 1970s -- years before the rapes occurred.

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

The neighborhoods around Westport were terrorized in the summer of 1983, as at least eight women were sexually assaulted within one month. The assailant in most of the cases broke in through a window in the middle of the night.

Maynard was arrested in August 1983. Police said he fell asleep in the bed of a 27-year-old woman he had raped at knifepoint. He was charged with four rapes and convicted of two of them. Maynard was sentenced to four life terms plus 55 years, all to run consecutively.

The rape victims, who were 20 to 35 at the time, are 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 re-victimized from the grave, so to speak."