Preble County serial rapist facing 135 years goes up for parole in Ohio

Serial rapist Steven E. Barker is up for parole this week. In 1995, the New Paris man was convicted of raping 12 women in Ohio and Indiana and trying to rape four more.

Barker stalked and preyed on older women who lived alone, according to reports from the time. His youngest victim was 40. Several were in their 60s. The oldest was her 80s. The attacks occurred in the area of Preble County in Ohio and Wayne County in Indiana.

Barker is now 61 and serving a 135-year sentence in Ohio. Even if he's paroled in this state, he faces another 50 years in prison in Indiana, where seven of the women were attacked.

He has what amounts to a life sentence. Several of his victims have died in the three decades since the crimes occurred, and yet, there are still those fighting to make sure their loved ones get the justice they believe they deserve.

'No one is coming home'

Two sisters, the daughters of one of Barker's victims, are doing just that. They recently wrote to the parole board asking that Barker stay locked up in Ohio, a plea their mother can no longer make. She died in 2022.

"One of the last conversations with her the week she passed away was that she knew she would never have to endure another anniversary of being raped," the sisters wrote.

Letters sent to the parole board advocating for the continued incarceration or the release of a prisoner are not available to the public.

However, The Enquirer obtained one letter from the family of a victim with their permission. The family and victim were not named in the letter due to ongoing safety concerns.

The letter recounts the day the victim encountered Barker as she was coming out of the shower after he had broken in through a window.

"She told him he had to leave because her husband was coming home, and he informed her that he knew she lived alone and that no one is coming home to save her," the letter said.

Then he threatened to kill her.

After the attack, the woman was left bound, her eyes still wrapped with duct tape.

"With great struggle and effort she made it to the street and found her way up to the neighbor’s house and literally threw herself against the front door until they finally opened the door and found her," the letter says. "All of this happening while not really knowing if Steven E. Barker was outside waiting."

The crimes

The victims of Barker's crimes have largely remained anonymous. His case never went to trial because he accepted a plea deal, but some basic details were published in the Eaton Register-Herald in 1993.

More: 'Can this case be won?' How a plea deal works in Ohio and why there are so many

There was the 59-year-old on Maple Street who was bound and raped, duct tape pulled over her eyes.

A 67-year-old on Romadoor Avenue who was laying in her own bed when and man broke in and tried to attack her.

Nearby in Barker's hometown of New Paris, a 60-year-old was bound, blindfolded and raped.

Prosecutors said all the rapes and attacks occurred between 1991 and 1993.

As the victims were tallied, they learned about each other.

"With news of each new rape we stopped breathing again and our hearts broke," the sisters wrote. "We knew that someone else and another family was beginning the journey we had recently embarked on."

It was DNA that connected Barker to one of the victims and led to his arrest and indictment. It was an early DNA case, only six years after the technology was first used in court. After Ohio created its sexual predator registry in 1997, Barker was added to it in 2000.

His escape

About nine months after Barker was indicted, he escaped with another inmate from the Preble County Jail where he was awaiting trial.

On Aug. 31, 1994, Barker and his cellmate, a man accused of robbery and assault, used hacksaws to cut through the bars blocking the window of their fourth-floor cell, according to reports at the time.,

Then the pair used a rope made of bed linen to lower themselves off the roof. Investigators said they believed the pair had help, including a getaway driver.

The sister wrote that the community and their family was rocked knowing that Barker was loose. They got an attack dog, changed the windows and put up security lights.

"We had electrical and phone lines buried underground, so they couldn’t be cut because that is what Steven E. Barker had done before he entered her house," their letter said. "Men in our community drove the streets at night trying to make their presence known in case he came back to their community."

Barker was on the run for more than three weeks. He was caught by the FBI in Houston, Texas on Sept. 22, 1994, in the midst of the O.J. Simpson trial.

The scars

The sisters told the parole board in their letter that their mother was never the same. There was depression and anxiety, of course, but there was more.

"We watched the life drain out of her," they wrote. "She stopped loving life. A sexual assault disturbs the normal rhythm of living and so many aspects of one’s life."

Their mother was also a grandmother, sister, cousin and aunt. The attack affected all of them.

"As a family we felt utterly incapable of trying to help her find balance in her life and begin to heal," the letter said.

Parole

Barker is currently being held at the Marion Correctional Institute. His parole hearing of a group scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday of this week. It is not open to the public.

If he is paroled, he will be transferred into the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction to serve his sentence in that state.

While the hearing will be held this week, the decision of the board could take several weeks to be finalized and announced. The Ohio Department of Corrections said the decisions of the board go through quality assurance process.

The sister said if Barker is set free they are convinced he will rape again, and pleaded with the parole board to protect the public.

"Our family has spent 30 years trying to find a place of peace with everything we have shared in this letter," the sisters wrote. "No amount of time can ever 'pay back' all the things this predator took away from the women he raped. He changed their lives forever ... and he also changed his life forever. His forever should be life in prison – off the streets – where he can NEVER rape again."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio serial rapist with 135 year sentence is up for parole this week