NORFOLK, Va. (7News) — One of the most infamous serial rapists in modern Virginia history could soon be released from prison, even though a state investigation found the rapist should not be eligible for parole.

One of the man’s victims tells our Nick Minock she’s terrified Gov. Abigail Spanberger's new parole board will let him out, even though he was sentenced to over two hundred years in prison.

In the late 1980s, a serial rapist terrorized multiple women in Hampton Roads.

Anthony McGaha was dubbed the “Ocean View Rapist,” and his crimes were so terrible that he was sentenced to life in prison plus 236 years.

RELATED | Spanberger’s parole board grants significantly more requests than Youngkin's

To the shock of his surviving victims, he has a parole hearing next week and he could be released

“It was four in the morning and I was sleeping,” one of the victims told Minock. “Safe and sound in my home, and I was woken up by someone on top of me with a knife to my throat.”

“And your child was in the other room?” Minock asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “A piece of me died that day. There's a piece of me I will never get back.”

One of McGaha’s victims told Minock that her world was turned upside down when she learned her rapist may be granted parole.

She did not want to be identified in case he is released

“If he gets out of prison, I firmly believe, and I'm not the only one that thinks that, that he will rape again,” she said.

McGaha was convicted of breaking into the homes of six different women and raping them.

Former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares sent a letter to the parole board urging them not to release McGaha.

“The record on McGaha's dangerousness and lack of remorse could not be clearer,” said Miyares. “He told investigators he 'wasn't raping' his victims; he was 'making love to them,' while separately admitting he did not have their consent. At sentencing, Judge Robert W. Stewart specifically noted McGaha's utter lack of remorse and his belief that he was 'invincible.' That combination of predatory calculation, total absence of empathy, and a self-image of invincibility is precisely the profile of an offender who remains a threat to public safety today, regardless of his age or time served.”

Because of the nature of his multiple crimes, McGaha shouldn’t even be eligible for parole, according to a state investigation when Miyares was in office.

The state found that the parole board under Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam violated the law by incorrectly interpreting Virginia’s three-strikes law and restored parole eligibility for McGaha in 2019.

That decision means that victims, like the woman we spoke with, have to go to the parole board to beg them not to release McGaha every year.

She’s also concerned that the current board members – who were all appointed by Spanberger – are approving significantly more parole requests than former Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s parole board.

“The thing is, if we knew the parole board was thinking there's no way a rapist is going to get released, a serial rapist is going to get released from prison, we could relax a little and trust in the parole board, but now I'm afraid to trust in the parole board,” she told 7News. “So now I feel like we have to fight it.”

“I'm doing this so everyone can hear this: To let the parole board know to please not let him out of prison,” she added.

She told 7News she has only 15 minutes to speak to a parole board member about her story and she hopes the parole board will listen to and consider the trauma victims have endured.

“The parole board, they're looking at a list of charges for these criminals,” she said. “And I'm not saying they don't do their due diligence. I think they have information about the six rapes and six burglaries, but they may have the CliffsNotes version of: Did it involve a child? Did it involve a weapon? So they may look at some details on the cases, but they weren't there. Forty years have passed, but when the jury sentenced him to 200+ years plus life in prison, they were there to hear all the testimony. They [the parole board] weren't. They were there to hear what the victims went through. They were here. They hear what the victims' families went through, what the detectives went through, and all that went into prosecuting these criminals. But then 40 years later, the parole board, I feel like, is kind of removed from it. So that's why I feel like we have to plead to tell the parole board 'Here's what happened. Here's some details of what happened. Here's how this was. He terrorized the cities of Norfolk and Virginia Beach because no one knew when he was going to strike again. That's how big this was.' But I don't know that the parole board gets the sense of that because they're looking at documentation on paper. I'm not trying to belittle what they do. I'm sure they get the information that they can get. But the paper's not heartfelt. The paper doesn't really explain what the victims went through 40 years ago. And I know it seems like a long time, but I feel like it was yesterday. Like it doesn't go away. Sexual assault stays with someone forever.”

She also told 7News that she supports Lexie’s Law, which is proposed legislation in Virginia that aims to block people who are convicted of violent crimes like rape and murder from being eligible for age-related geriatric release. The bill was introduced in the name of Lexie Walters, who was murdered and sexually assaulted, and even though the defendant received two life sentences, he qualified for geriatric parole just months later due to current Virginia law.

“If they can exempt violent criminals from geriatric parole, then someone in the future whose heart is terrified and breaking and they're scared, they don't have to do this every year,” she said. “They don't have to tear open this wound and fight the parole board, because administratively, they are eligible for geriatric parole.”

“I would also urge the Board to apply the same rigor to McGaha's pending geriatric conditional release petition that it would to his discretionary parole bid," Miyares told the parole board, ahead of the Sept. 30 parole hearing. "Virginia law does permit an offender barred from discretionary parole under the 'three strikes' law to petition for geriatric conditional release once he meets the age and time-served thresholds. But that legal availability is not an endorsement. Geriatric release exists for aging inmates who no longer pose a public safety risk, and the Board's own discretion to grant or deny it should weigh McGaha's documented lack of remorse, his stated belief in his own invincibility, and the calculated, repetitive nature of his crimes just as heavily as it would in a discretionary parole review. Age alone does not erase McGaha’s record.”

The current Virginia Parole Board Members are: Shannon Dion, Kecia Brothers Hayes, Tyrone Nelson, Valerie Boykin, and Kevin White. You can message the parole board by emailing vpbmail@vpb.virginia.gov or click here.