THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 8, 1994 TAG: 9406080582
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940608 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
By the end of last summer, he had upped the stakes - he began breaking into the homes of his victims and fondling them while they slept. Eventually, he became more violent, holding pillows over their faces as he sexually assaulted them.
{REST} It was a pattern that, if left unchecked, would have led to serial rape, or even murder, as Gilchrist needed more and more intensity to fulfill his sexual obsessions, a psychiatrist determined.
But he will not get that chance. On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Thomas S. Shadrick sentenced Gilchrist to 129 years for 32 charges involving women in 15 residences near his Oceanfront apartment.
After three victims told their stories, two of them weeping on the stand, Gilchrist and his attorney pleaded with the judge for the opportunity to get help for his problem.
Shadrick told him it was too late.
``Sexual crimes have a lasting, sometimes lifelong effect, on the victim. There can't be a more serious offense, to destroy someone's enjoyment of life,'' the judge said. ``You get help when you find out you have the problem, not after you get arrested for it.''
Shadrick said Gilchrist should have realized he had a problem when he was arrested before - six times for indecent exposure, four times for being a Peeping Tom - starting in 1988.
One 22-year-old victim testified she had to quit school and quit her job after Gilchrist sexually assaulted her while holding a pillow over her face.
``I feel like my whole life has been taken away,'' she said. ``I can't trust anybody. I tried to go into a classroom, but I was afraid. I had to quit my job as a waitress because I never knew if it was him I was waiting on. It scared me to death. I can't sleep without checking and checking and re-checking everything.''
Another victim, 19, told how she and her apartment mates couldn't sleep without a male friend on the couch by the front door. Eventually, she was forced to move back in with her father.
A 23-year-old victim said her grade-point average fell from 3.86 to 2.7 after the assault. ``I have knots constantly in my back,'' she said. ``If anybody touches me, I start to shake.''
In an emotional appeal, prosecutor Pamela Albert asked Shadrick to keep Gilchrist off the street by giving him the maximum penalty. Shadrick said he would have to give consideration to Gilchrist's cooperation with police and spare him the maximum sentence: life in prison.
``Judge, he's taken full responsibility for his actions,'' defense attorney Nancy Kight said. ``He turned himself in. He confessed fully. He told detectives he needed help. He never wanted to do anything but plead guilty and spare the victims the turmoil of testifying. He is truly remorseful.''
Albert disagreed.
``He's had previous therapy. He has a previous record, but after 1, 6, 8, 12, 15 burglaries, he doesn't go to a doctor and say `I've got a problem.' He doesn't ask for help. We're not arguing that he's got a problem. Our problem is what are we going to do about it. It's clear he's an extreme threat. Use incarceration in the hopes he can recover. With his record, it's a shallow hope.''
Gilchrist was caught after police made a fingerprint match and a victim identified him from a photo lineup. Gilchrist confessed, describing nearly every incident in great detail. He told police he wanted to get caught.
Without a car, Gilchrist fanned out on foot from his home in the 1500 block of Arctic Avenue, sometimes peeping into his victim's home a half-dozen times before breaking in.
At first, he told police, he just took money for his two children and to help save his troubled marriage. But ultimately, his obsessions took over, he said.
His peeping started when he was a teenager. ``It sounds strange,'' he told police during his confession. ``But that's what I did for entertainment and my social life.''
But it got out of control, he said. ``It's gone a lot further, it scares . . . me,'' he said. ``I don't want to rot in jail. I want to get help . . . I want to be a normal part of my kids' lives, not like some deviant like I am right now.''
Gilchrist said he had been in counseling and had reached an understanding about his problem. He was molested when he was 5, he said.
But it was what happened when he was 12, Gilchrist said, that led to the deviance. He visited his father's house and ended up at a party.
``Some of the women there were drunk and they started fondling me and stuff like that and . . . I wasn't in control and the way I look at it, when I peep and I do that, I'm in control.''
Albert sees it differently. ``Mr. Gilchrist presents a formidable threat to the community,'' she told the judge in closing arguments. ``He is out of control. We have a chance here today to protect the community.''
{KEYWORDS} RAPE SEXUAL ASSAULT SENTENCING TRIAL ROBBERY
by CNB