Melvin Carter, known as the College Terrace Rapist, is an American serial rapist who confessed to at least 100 rapes of women between 1971 and 1980.
Early life
Carter was born in Colorado. His mother was domineering and he was intellectually gifted with limited social and emotional skills. He was a successful student at the School of Mines. He began to stalk women in public parks, coming up behind them and groping their breasts. Later he used ether to render his victims unconscious, groping them after they were out. During this period he also spent one night in jail for voyeurism. After graduating, he moved to California where he secured a job in the Bay Area as a computer engineer.
College Terrace attacks
Although Carter had occasionally dated women, he was never intimate with any of his dates. He became known as the College Terrace Rapist because he chose that area for many of his attacks. College Terrace is an area of about 24 blocks immediately adjacent to Escondido Village in Stanford University. Carter would first determine whether a potential victim lived alone. If she did, he would break into her residence during the day when she was at work to determine the layout so he could later move around at night. After leaving a window open, he would return at night to force sex with the woman. At least 11 women living in College Terrace were raped at knifepoint by Carter between 1971 and 1980. One of the rape victims, a 32-year-old lawyer named Susan, wrote about her experience for a creative writing class. She said that she did not know if her sex act with Carter would be her last moment alive, and she decided to be very calm and centered.
Other attacks
Carter also attacked women in San Francisco, Davis, Berkeley and other California cities. However, he became known as the College Terrace Rapist by first being identified as a serial rapist there and eventually being arrested in Palo Alto.
Carter was eventually captured in 1980 and charged with 23 crimes including multiple counts of rape. He was not charged with many of the rapes because the statute of limitations had expired. As a result of this case, the statute of limitations for rape in California was raised from three years to six. He was sentenced to 25 years and released in 1994 after serving about half his sentence. His release was highly controversial.
Impact
Carter's case led directly to an increase in the statute of limitations for rape in California. The new law was authored by Assemblyman Byron Sher and was praised by law enforcement officials throughout the Bay Area. The previous statute of limitations--three years--had often been ineffective in prosecuting serial rapists because often by the time all leads could be fully explored, the time limit would have nearly expired. Six years was considered a more appropriate limit because there was precedent for that in other states--and that is about the limit beyond which witnesses' testimony might become unreliable.
