Elizabeth Lynn Dunham: May 12, 1961-Jan. 16, 2011

via Willamette Week -

http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-16895-elizabeth_lynn_dunham_may_12_1961_jan_16_2011.html

On Jan. 23, The Sunday Oregonian published an obituary for Elizabeth Dunham, who had died a week earlier at 49.
Nothing in the five-paragraph obit indicated that when she died, Dunham took with her a troubling piece of Oregon history.

Although she has remained anonymous until now, Elizabeth Dunham was the victim whom former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt raped in the mid-1970s, beginning when he was mayor of Portland and she was a young teenager. As long as she was alive, the media withheld her name.

We’re identifying her now—after much internal discussion—for two reasons.

First, the list of things Goldschmidt stole from Dunham should not include her identity. Second, the story of this powerful man’s abuse can be more fully told now that his victim can no longer suffer from it.

I believe it was a reprint of a 2004 piece chronicling this unfortunate woman's life but not revealing her name. It was a harrowing account of the evil perpetrated on Elizabeth by a man who can only be described as pond scum (with apologies to actual pond scum). I worked for a state agency during Goldschmidt's term as governor, and became well aware of his pompous, swaggering, arrogant, self-centeredness and his disregard and disdain for everyone around him. I used to compare him to the 800-pound gorilla (apologies to gorillas) who slept anywhere he wanted to. Little did I know what a truly evil person he was, though I saw hints of it, until after the story came out about his ongoing abuse of who we now know is Elizabeth and the wreckage he made of her life. Makes one wonder how many others he destroyed in a similar fashion. His response to the Oregonian article was another reflection of his inability to care about his actions and their consequences. Don't have his comments in front of me, but seems like it pretty much boiled down to "he'd like to get on with his life." Wherever he's getting on with his miserable excuse for a life, I hope it's far away from Oregon. He has left our beautiful state a legacy of shame that I hope will never be matched.

And to Elizabeth Dunham, I say, you never deserved what this horrible, soulless, repugnant man did to you. May you rest in peace.