This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
He was a two-bit robber with an upcoming parole and an intimidating gaze. A criminal among criminals, but not a monster.
Not yet.
Like other inmates, he looked down on sex offenders - especially those who victimized children. He liked to brag about the day he attacked a prisoner who wasn't willing to "accept his place" at the bottom of the criminal hierarchy known as "the sinner's ladder."
Family members on the outside kept his "book," or prison bankroll, loaded. Inmates with cash can buy better clothing, better shoes, novels and even televisions for their cells.
Rudy Michael Romero used to have all those things.
And he had something even more important: In a dangerous world where status often dictates safety, Romero was safe.
"I may have been a piece of sh-- outside these walls, but in here people knew who I was," Romero told The Salt Lake Tribune. "I was somebody in here. People revered me."
But that was before a Salt Lake City Police detective came with a warrant for his blood.
"That," says Romero, pausing to stare down at his prison-issued slippers, "was before I was the Parkway Rapist."
"I don't have nothing": It was one year ago this month that Romero lost his status, his future and his family.
His DNA - taken from a database of samples from more than 20,000 prisoners - was matched with evidence collected in the early 1990s, when a serial rapist stalked women along the Jordan River Parkway in Salt Lake City.
Thirteen victims have been identified by police. Most were in their teens. The youngest was 9.
The statute of limitations for prosecution had long since passed, but the state had a trump card: Romero, who recently had been paroled after serving 10 years of a five-to-life sentence for armed robbery, was back in prison after being caught smoking marijuana - a parole violation.
Upon reviewing the DNA evidence, the state Board of Pardons and Parole voted to rescind Romero's previously scheduled July release in favor of 25 more years in prison.
Some civil-rights advocates have criticized the board's decision, which was based on charges never proved in court. But no attorney has come forward to take Romero's case.
"I've written attorneys, dozens and dozens of attorneys," Romero says. "One says my matter is a criminal case and another says it's a civil case. And no one wants to help me."
His voice cracks. His dark eyes water over. A tear draws a line from the corner of his eye to the corner of his thin black moustache. "I don't have nothing," he says softly. "I don't have nothing."
"Do I deserve to be here?" Romero won't talk to police about the 13 sexual assaults that took place near the Jordan River Parkway between 1990 and 1993. And he refused to address the charges during his parole board hearings.
He won't directly admit to the attacks. But he won't deny it either. And he hasn't given anyone much reason to doubt his culpability.
There were no Parkway attacks during a period when Romero was out of the state. They ended when he went to prison in 1994.
In his interview with The Tribune, Romero described himself as "an untreated sex offender" and "a monster."
In the days after they came to draw his blood, Romero, a Catholic, says he asked for a priest because he wanted to confess.
He doesn't dispute the validity of the DNA match.
"Do I deserve to be here? Probably," says the 40-year-old prisoner. "But I don't want to die here."
Romero has tried to keep the details of the allegations from other inmates, but it hasn't been easy. As word travels, his status degenerates.
"Now he's getting a taste of the world he created for his victims," says one inmate who was incarcerated for several months in the same unit as Romero at the Utah State Prison. "He still tries to act tough, but he's no more liked in here than he is on the outside."
"They took away everything": Romero's father still speaks with his son. "It's my duty as a father not to abandon him," Michael Romero says. But most other members of Romero's family have ended their support.
A longtime girlfriend cut off contact when she learned of the DNA match. She even offered to aid police in the investigation.
Rudy Romero's square jaw trembles and his hands shake when he speaks about his children. There are eight in all, and he doesn't even know where most of them are.
"They took away my family," he says. "They took away everything - every last bit or respect I had."
After the DNA match, as the parole board considered his fate, Romero was moved from the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison to the prison complex where he currently resides, in Draper. He has been moved through several units since arriving in Draper.
With each move, he has been strip-searched - his body probed for contraband. The searches are unwelcome, invasive, emasculating. Prisoners who resist are searched by force.
"It's sexual assault," he cries, noting that he has never been caught with any contraband. "It's rape. Don't you understand? I don't deserve this."
Suddenly, silently, the man accused of sexually assaulting 13 females - most of them not even old enough to drive - raises his shaved head and wipes the tears from his eyes.
"Oh yeah, I know," he says. "I know the difference between right and wrong. No one would probably believe that, but I do.
"And I know those women didn't do nothing wrong. They didn't deserve what they got, either."
And now he lives in fear. In sadness and solitude. In a cruel world of concrete walls and steel bars. Lost in legal abyss.
A monster among criminals.