Warning: This article contains content that readers may find disturbing.
An infamous Minnesota sex offender who, by his own admission, has violently raped more than 60 young women is set to live near an elementary school.
Thomas Ray Duvall, 66, has spent much of his life in and out of prison for raping teenage girls throughout the 1970s and 80s, some as young as 14 or 15 years old. In 2018, he was released from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program after 30 years for raping a 17-year-old girl in 1987.
He was initially sentenced to 20 years but was indefinitely committed in 1991 as a “psychopathic personality,” according to The Star Tribune.
In that case, Duvall tied up his teenage victim with an electric cord and raped her for three hours while hitting her with a hammer. He was arrested 12 days after his release on a prior conviction.
Duvall was allowed a conditional release in 2018 after the Minnesota Court of Appeals gave the green light, with the Minnesota Supreme Court subsequently refusing to review his case after a request by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Former Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper opposed Duvall’s release “out of a deep concern for public safety,” Fox News reported at the time.
A forensic psychologist described Duvall as a “man obsessed with sex, most of it violent” during his 2017 discharge hearing.
At the time, Duvall was considered a potential risk for reoffending, given his own history of doing so and his diagnosis as a sadist, but his behavior in the state’s sex offender program was deemed exemplary, with staff members claiming he was dedicated to his treatment plan and learning to control his violent sexual desires.
According to The Star Tribune, one of Duvall’s victims had been changing her phone number and address every few months after she learned about his petition for release.
“We are terrified that he will be walking the streets,” the woman’s sister told The Star Tribune in 2018. “We feel let down by our elected officials, MSOP and the court system, and now fear for the community at large.”
According to the St. Paul Police Department, Duvall recently registered to live on the 500 block of Van Buren Avenue — just a few blocks away from the Church of St. Agnes, which also has a K-12 school on site. Jackson Elementary is also in the area.
The information was posted on Tuesday by Crime Watch St. Paul, ahead of a scheduled “mass Level 3 Sex Offender notification meeting” hosted by the St. Paul Police Department that evening.
Some of the other sex offenders listed will also be living in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, such as Eric Leon Gates, 44, and Richard Allan Bushway, 68, who are set to live on the 800 block of Western Avenue North.
Gates has a history of sexually assaulting minor female acquaintances between the ages of 12-13, according to a packet from the St. Paul Police Department.
“Richard Bushway has a history of engaging in sexual contact with known adult females,” the packet says. “Bushway has used force, threats and violence to gain compliance.”
Evan Stambaugh
Evan Stambaugh is a freelance writer who had previously been a sports blogger. He has a BA in theology and an MA in philosophy.
