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'Hyde Park Rapist' Freed, To Live In Melbourne

Tribune photo by JULIE BUSCH

Bobby Joe Helms heads out of Judge J. Rogers Padgett's courtroom Thursday morning after he was released.

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 17, 2008

Updated: 01/17/2008 01:38 pm

TAMPA - The man once known as the "Hyde Park rapist" has been released again from a state treatment center.

Bobby Joe Helms

Not to be confused with another "Hyde Park rapist" who struck in the 1990s, Bobby Joe Helms terrorized the neighborhood for about three years in the 1980s, later telling authorities he raped 12 women and tried to rape four more. He selected his victims based on where they lived and threatened them with a dull, serrated-edge steak knife, authorities said.

He served 13 years in prison and was released in 1999 on probation and spent most of the time since then confined to a secured state treatment center, except for a period from 2002 through 2003.

Two psychiatrists evaluated Helms last fall and determined he is not a danger.

"I don't plan on creating any more victims when I leave here," Helms said today. "I'm planning on living a healthy life when I leave here."

A Hillsborough County Circuit Court judge approved a contract today that details conditions for Helms' release. Those conditions include lie detector tests every few months, continued treatment on an outpatient basis, a curfew that does not allow him to be outside from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and reporting himself as a sexual predator.

Helms will live in a Melbourne apartment. He has two brothers and two sisters in that area, he said.

He said he did not think it would be fair to people if he moved back to the Tampa area.

Helms' victims included a 15-year-old girl and two sisters and a woman who was attacked in 1983. The Tampa Tribune typically does not identify rape victims.

One of his victims, who was 31 when she was raped in 1983, said she is glad he won't live near Tampa.

She said she still lives in fear that he will come after her.

She thinks Helms will have difficulty adjusting to the outside world and thinks he might not be completely rehabilitated.

"I have my doubts, and I have a gun permit, and if he comes after me, I'll kill him," she said.

Helms tasted freedom for about six hours in October before an arrangement for his housing fell apart and he was sent back to a state treatment center. Officials at a mobile home park for sex offenders concluded Helms was too dangerous.

A few hours later, he was whisked back to confinement. Since then, Helms and his attorney have searched for a place that would take him. Six places fell through before this apartment was found, said his attorney, Jeanine Cohen.

Though Helms told investigators he committed 12 rapes and attempted four more, police and prosecutors negotiated a plea agreement rather than go to trial. The reasons: a lack of strong physical evidence or witness identifications in all but his last sexual assault.

Authorities said the culprit always wore gloves or socks over his hands, preventing fingerprint comparisons. At the time of the rapes, which began in January 1983, Helms was a kitchen worker at the Colonnade restaurant on Bayshore Boulevard and at the former T.G.I. Friday's restaurant in Hyde Park.

Two victims have died, said a victim interviewed late last year. Others have left the Tampa area.

"I know what I did was wrong and it created a lot of pain, and I don't want to do that no more," he said.

In 2002, Helms signed a contract with Hillsborough County for his release that, among other things, required he continue treatment on an outpatient basis. A failed lie detector test a few months later put him back in the treatment center in 2003 under the Jimmy Ryce Act.

Cohen said the two psychiatrists who evaluated Helms before his October release concurred with evaluations by doctors the last time he was committed that he would be "unlikely to reoffend in a sexually violent manner."

Assistant State Attorney Rita Peters said the prosecution had no option under the law but to agree to his release last year. She said she negotiated the agreement placing severe restrictions on his remaining six years of probation.

The Ryce Act uses a civil court jury to confine some sex offenders to a treatment center indefinitely after they have served their prison sentences. An offender is released when another jury decides he or she is ready to return to society.

Rather than allowing that often-unconditional release, prosecutors use a program where offenders can sign a contract stipulating conditions of release. The contracts allow offenders to return to society without a jury's approval.

TIMELINE

1986: Bobby Joe Helms sentenced to 10 years in a plea deal for admitting to raping 12 women, attempting four rapes and committing 26 burglaries. Term extended three years for discipline problems.
1999: Transferred to Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia, where he was detained for treatment under the Jimmy Ryce Act. Later agrees to stay in treatment longer.
2002: Set free after serving 13 years in prison and three years in the treatment center.
2003: Returns to center after failing lie detector tests in violation of his release conditions.
2007: Released from center but sent back hours later after living arrangement plans unravel.
2008: Released and plans to live in Melbourne.

Reporters Tom Krause and Elaine Silvestrini contributed to this report. Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at jpoltilove@tampatrib.com.

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