“Woman’s Horrifying Experience: Man Sentenced for Rape from Decades Ago”

Warning: This story contains details and content that some readers may find distressing.

A man who snatched a young woman off the street and raped her close to four decades ago has been jailed for more than nine years.

Travis Scott Rielly, 58, dropped his head as Victorian County Court Judge Gerard Mullaly sentenced him on Tuesday for the aggravated rape of a 19-year-old woman.

Rielly admitted he and two other men abducted the woman off a St Kilda street, in Melbourne’s inner south-east, during the early hours of January 23, 1988. 

They shoved her into the back seat of a car, covered her mouth as she screamed for help and drove her to nearby Elwood Beach, where they took turns raping her. 

After they finished, the men shoved her out of the vehicle and she ran to a friend’s home nearby.

The woman reported the rape to police and underwent a forensic medical examination but her attackers were not discovered. 

That was until 2021, when Rielly was arrested in Queensland on unrelated dangerous driving charges and police obtained a sample of his genetic material.

Testing revealed his DNA matched samples taken from the woman back in 1988.

Police waited for Rielly to be released on parole in Queensland before they extradited him to Victoria in October.

He pleaded guilty to the aggravated rape charge in the Victorian County Court in August.

The judge said the offending was a serious example of aggravated rape and needed to be denounced. 

“This is every woman walking alone in the street’s nightmare,” Judge Mullaly said in sentencing.

“She was vulnerable and you knew it.”

Rielly told police he first met the other men on the night of the rape and they had gone out with the intention of having sex with the same woman.

He did not remember much else from the night and he never saw the co-accused again, instead leaving on a backpacking trip around Australia shortly after.

Mullaly said Rielly might not remember the attack, but his victim had suffered long and enduring trauma as a result of his crime.

She had been an aspiring painter and was due to start an art course when she was attacked while walking home, the judge said.

“Her life which promised so much was in effect ruined, snatched from her by what you did,” he added.

The woman, now in her 50s, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and agoraphobia, and has been unable to hold down a job. 

Rielly provided an apology letter to the victim, saying he was horrified by his actions and would forever be filled with regret.

Mullaly said that apology, alongside his early guilty plea, demonstrated genuine remorse.

Rielly had lived a mostly law-abiding life in the years since the rape and would likely continue that lifestyle once released, the judge said.

But he ultimately found denouncing the “deplorable” conduct was the most important sentencing consideration.

Rielly was jailed for nine years and nine months. He will be eligible for parole after six-and-a-half years.