Fear, Pain Return for 2 Victims of Rape : Crime: After slowly rebuilding their lives, the women are fighting to change the scheduled parole of the ‘Pillowcase Rapist.’

Nearly 17 years ago, a man broke into Rebecca’s house in West Los Angeles, placed a pillowcase over her head and raped her while her 2-year-old son, who had crawled into bed with his mother, whimpered at her side.

For years after, Rebecca fought recurring nightmares, agoraphobia and excessive weight gain. Finally, she forgave the rapist.

“That’s when I started to get better,” said Rebecca, now 40. After eight years she recovered and, in her mind, became better for the struggle.

But two weeks ago the nightmares returned: Rebecca, who now lives in Baldwin Hills, heard news reports that her suspected assailant, Reginald Donald Muldrew--dubbed the “Pillowcase Rapist” because he covered his victims’ faces with pillowcases, blouses or scarves--was scheduled to be paroled from state prison to nearby Covina.

Muldrew, 46, was convicted of six sexual assaults and numerous other felonies in 1978 and is suspected by police of having committed more than 200 sexual assaults and 150 burglaries in Los Angeles from 1975 to 1978.

State corrections officials will not confirm Muldrew’s destination--saying only that he will be released somewhere in Southern California early this month if he passes a psychiatric examination. However, Covina Police Chief John Lentz says state officials have told him that Muldrew is scheduled to be paroled to Covina on Sunday. After serving 15 years in prison, Muldrew is eligible for release under the state’s determinate sentencing law.

Lentz and other city officials have fought to keep Muldrew out of the community, organizing a protest rally and gathering more than 20,000 signatures.

In the middle of this very public event, two of Muldrew’s suspected victims have decided to share their most private pain. Rebecca and Carol--pseudonyms provided by The Times, which does not publish the names of rape victims--are adding their voices to the chorus demanding that Muldrew’s parole be blocked.

“This man destroyed me within forever,” said Carol, who was raped in Southwest Los Angeles and now lives in the central city. “He has no rights to be free to harm anyone ever again.”

Rebecca said she became pregnant by her assailant and had an abortion. Carol carries not only emotional but physical scars, including a cut on her left cheek that required 21 stitches.

Covina police said Rebecca’s name is on a Los Angeles Police Department list of cases in which Muldrew was suspected but never prosecuted. They said that Carol’s name is not on the list, but that her story sounds credible and they are investigating court records to corroborate it.

Mary Richie, executive director of Project Sister, a sexual assault crisis intervention agency in Pomona, said victims of rape and other crimes are more likely these days to speak out about their experiences.

“Women coming forward like this is a reminder,” said Leah Aldridge, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. “These crimes do not have faceless, nameless victims. For many women, speaking out about something like this . . . can do a lot to increase their healing process and reduce the level of helplessness.”

Rebecca’s husband was not home when the young mother went to bed about 12:30 a.m. on Jan. 7, 1978. “I woke up because something jolted me awake,” she said. “I looked in the doorway and saw a dark figure kneeling and pointing a gun.” The man told her not to move or he would shoot her.

He lurched forward, put something over her head and raped her. When he was done, he went through drawers and closets and, before leaving, told her to count to 100 before she moved.

Rebecca cooperated and went into the living room, where her husband, who had returned home during the attack, was asleep in a chair. “He didn’t believe me,” Rebecca said of her husband, from whom she is now separated. “He couldn’t accept it.”

Her husband broke into tears when Rebecca told him that she was pregnant by her assailant and that she had chosen to have an abortion. “I guess because he didn’t protect me,” she said.

She said she did not go out of her house for three years, suffered panic attacks and gained 90 pounds.

“I was shutting down and not talking to people; they didn’t understand,” she said.

Rebecca, who describes herself as a devout Catholic, said she would now like to talk to her rapist and ask him what happened in his childhood to make him commit such acts.

“It would be interesting to know if he feels he will do it again,” she said.

Carol woke to the sound of a ringing telephone Dec. 7, 1975, and found a man standing at the edge of her bed. He grabbed the 21-year-old post office worker, who fought for her life. He took a razor and slashed her left cheek, leaving a permanent scar.

The rapist dragged Carol from her bedroom, put a pillowcase over her head and tied her hands and feet. He beat, kicked, punched and raped her. She was sodomized and forced to perform oral sex. In between the sex acts, the rapist put cigarettes out on her back.

Carol’s 3-year-old twin daughters were in the room while their mother was being raped. One of the girls slept through the incident. The rapist fed her sister cereal in the kitchen while he ate Carol’s food and drank her liquor, Carol said.

Since hearing of the release of the man she believes raped her, Carol said, she has gone back into therapy.

“I’ve forgiven him because I think he’s a very sick person,” she said. “That doesn’t mean he should be free. He has damaged me for life. . . . I don’t think he should die; that’s the easy way out. I think he should sit in that little cell every day thinking about what he did.”

“I have a fear of going into the house alone,” she wrote in a letter to the Department of Corrections asking that Muldrew’s parole be blocked. “I have a fear of being in a house alone. Don’t make my life and the other lives he has destroyed any worse. Leave this man locked up forever.

“This is a cold, ruthless animal that needs to be caged and guarded like those dangerous animals in the zoo. His freedom should only be a thought in his mind, because in my mind he has imprisoned me for life.”