Billings man gets 22 life sentences for rapes

BILLINGS (AP) — A serial rapist who did not leave any DNA at the crime scenes, but was undone by his need to photograph them, has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

District Judge Russell C. Fagg sentenced 42-year-old Toby Eugene Griego on Friday to 22 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus 60 years and six months in prison.

Fagg said he'd never seen a more dangerous criminal or bigger predator in Billings, The Billings Gazette (http://bit.ly/1tKKmGv) reported.

"It will be my hope . that you never walk the streets again as a free man," the judge told him. "I think that's appropriate under these circumstances."

Griego, who had previously been convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl in New Mexico, was convicted of 27 felony counts in April for breaking into the homes of four women between January and July of last year, repeatedly raping three of them and trying to rape the fourth. Three reported being bound and gagged and threatened with various weapons. They said they were repeatedly raped with objects the attacker found in their homes.

He hit them in the head if they tried to look at him. Some heard clicking sounds like a camera. One woman was forced to drink large amounts of alcohol so quickly that she vomited.

One woman testified about being forced to withdraw money from an ATM. She said her attacker took her home, raped her again and dunked her in a water-filled ditch nearby.

Images of the women before and during the attacks were found on Griego's phone, detectives testified. Prosecutors said he didn't leave any DNA because he shaved his head, wore gloves, raped the women with objects and forced them to bathe or shower afterward.

One of the women testified during the sentencing hearing, saying she had post-traumatic stress disorder and had to move 1,000 miles away from Billings, but has decided to live her life happily.

"And I won't let someone like you ruin my life, because I have won the battle, and you have not," she said.

Dr. Robert Page, president of the Montana Sexual Offender Treatment Association, testified that he evaluated Griego and determined he was a sociopath with anger issues. He said Griego's attacks increased in frequency and it is conceivable that he could kill someone.

Griego didn't make a statement.

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