Parole Denied Again for Man Convicted in 1981 KU Rapes

Jean Rhea was notified through the state Office of Victim Services that Sherman L. Galloway had been denied parole again, pushing a 1981 University of Kansas rape case back into public view and forcing survivors, prosecutors and police to relive a crime that has shadowed Lawrence for decades.

The denial was the eighth in Galloway’s case, following rejections in 1996, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2012 and 2019. Rhea has opposed his release every time he has come up for review, and the repeated hearings have made her one of the most persistent voices in a long-running fight over whether a man convicted of two campus rapes should ever be allowed back into the community.

Rhea was 25 when Galloway attacked her on Dec. 4, 1981, while she was jogging on the University of Kansas campus. Court records and earlier reporting say he approached her from behind with a knife, threatened her if she screamed, then raped, sodomized, beat and bit her before she escaped to a passing motorist. In the other attack, a KU graduate student was forced at knifepoint into a car, driven to Clinton Park near Pinckney Elementary School and raped.

Police found Galloway’s wallet and driver’s license near the rape scene in the 1981 investigation, evidence that helped lead to his arrest and conviction. He was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, with parole eligibility after 15 years. Earlier reporting also noted that he was already on parole for a violent aggravated battery committed in 1979 when he carried out the rapes, a fact that opponents have cited as evidence of continuing risk.

The most recent hearing drew direct opposition from local law enforcement and prosecutors. The officer who responded to Rhea’s attack, a former Douglas County prosecutor who later reviewed the case, and current Douglas County District Attorney Dakota Loomis all urged the board not to release Galloway. Loomis’ office has described its approach as victim-focused, a stance that has put the district attorney’s office squarely behind Rhea as the case has returned again and again to the Kansas prison system.

The Kansas Prison Review Board had previously set Galloway’s next parole consideration for spring 2026 after the 2019 denial, when he had already served nearly 40 years and was told he would wait at least seven more years for another review. For Rhea and other Douglas County victims caught in long-tail violent-crime cases, the parole process is not a one-time event. It is a recurring demand to revisit the worst day of their lives every time the state considers whether an old sentence should end.