Many progressives are familiar with the case of Wayne Dumond, the convicted rapist who was paroled at Governor Mike Huckabee's urging and went on to rape and kill again.  Dumond was in jail for raping a distant cousin of Bill Clinton's, and a vocal right-wing campaign had claimed Dumond was innocent and urged Huckabee to pardon him.  The story has, thankfully for those who value the truth, been making its way into the mainstream media more often of late.

Just this past Sunday, Huckabee repeated his oft-heard excuse that there was no way anyone could have predicted Dumond might be a threat to other women if he was released:

While on the campaign trail, Huckabee has claimed that he supported the 1999 release of Wayne Dumond because, at the time, he had no good reason to believe that the man represented a further threat to the public. Thanks to Huckabee's intervention, conducted in concert with a right-wing tabloid campaign on Dumond's behalf, Dumond was let out of prison 25 years before his sentence would have ended.

"There's nothing any of us could ever do," Huckabee said Sunday on CNN when asked to reflect on the horrific outcome caused by the prisoner's release. "None of us could've predicted what [Dumond] could've done when he got out."

But superstar investigative reporter Murray Waas has put the lie to Huckabee's excuses.  Waas has made public, for the first time, confidential Arkansas government records proving that Huckabee knew Dumond was a serial rapist - including letters from other rape victims of Dumond, begging Huckabee not to grant parole to Dumond.

The names of these victims, of course, remain confidential.  But their letters speak for themselves:

Dear Governor Huckabee:

I am writing to express my strong opposition to your plans for releasing Wayne Dumond from prison.  <u>I am also a rape victim of Dumond</u> and can testify to the fact that he is not fit to be set free.

...

Based upon his previous actions, as well as psychological analysis conducted following his arrest in Washington that stated "He has a need to prove his masculinity to women," I fear that he will rape again if released.  My greatest fear is that since he was finally caught and sentenced for his crime, the next time he will be more careful to not leave a witness to testify against him.

...

I have relived the night of September 8, 1976 and the events of the next three weeks more times than you can ever imagine...

Governor Huckabee,

Twenty years ago my mother and I were living alone in an apartment.  Wayne Dumond broke into our home and raped my mother.  Due to my family's reaction there were never any charges filed...

Since the kidnap and rape of Ashley Stevens my mother has regretted her decision every day.  She has attended parole hearings and intends to do everything possible to protect herself and others by keeping Dumond behind bars.

Governor Huckabee, I really wish you could spend one night in my mother's home.  Even though twenty years have past she still has trouble sleeping at night.  The house is never dark.  Can you imagine the nightmares she has about being awakened by this man.  He told her if she did not cooperate he knew that I was upstairs and I would be the one he would attack.  To this day she still has those nightmares.

Dear Members of the Parole Board,

It is with much anguish that I am once again compelled to plead with you to not release Wayne Dumond from prison.

As a rape victim of Dumond, I fear for my personal safety, along with that of my family members as well as that of Ashley Stevens, her family and the public in general...

Even though it was 23 years ago this month when he forever changed my life by breaking into my home and raping me at knifepoint, I can still recall the exact tone of his voice as I woke up to him leaning over me in the dark with a knife at my throat.  As soon as I opened my eyes, his first words were "You're about to be raped." Those words still bring a chill to my body just thinking of them.

Just the sight of him on television and hearing his voice is more than I can bear.  I have to turn my head to keep from looking directly at him.  When he sits in front of a camera and denies his guilt while continually making derogatory remarks aimed at Ashley or me, I am amazed that he is able to draw so much media attention when his "story" changes every time he tells it.  However, the exact details of what actually happened to me are forever branded in my mind and have left scars that will never heal.

These letters were released directly from Huckabee's own files, Waas reports.

Huckabee kept these and other documents secret because they were politically damaging, according to a former aide who worked for him in Arkansas. The aide has made the records available to the Huffington Post, deeply troubled by Huckabee's repeated claims that he had no reason to believe Dumond would commit other violent crimes upon his release from prison. The aide also believes that Huckabee, for political reasons, has deliberately attempted to cover up his knowledge of Dumond's other sexual assaults.

"There were no letters sent to the governor's office from any rape victims," Huckabee campaign spokesperson Alice Stewart said on Tuesday when contacted by the Huffington Post.

Subsequently, however, the campaign provided a former senior aide of Huckabee's who did remember reading at least one of the letters.

Despite reading these heart-wrenching letters, Huckabee directed the parole board to release Dumond.

"I signed the [parole] papers because the governor wanted Dumond paroled. I was thinking the governor was working for the best interests of the state."

--Ermer Pondexter, ex-member of the board of pardons and paroles

"For Governor Huckabee to say that he had no influence with the board is something that he knows to be untrue. He came before the board and made his views known that [Dumond] should have been paroled..."

-Deborah Springer Suttlar, former parole board member

The consequences of Dumond's release were tragic and irrevocable:

After Dumond's release from prison in September 1999, he moved to Smithville, Missouri, where he raped and suffocated to death a 39-year-old woman named Carol Sue Shields. Dumond was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison for that rape and murder.

But Dumond's arrest for those crimes in June 2001 came too late for 23-year-old Sara Andrasek of Platte County, Missouri. Dumond allegedly raped and murdered her just one day before his arrest for raping and murdering Shields. Prior to the attack, Andrasek and her husband had learned that she was pregnant with their first child.

Dumond died of natural causes while in prison on September 1, 2005. At the time of his death, Missouri authorities were readying capital murder charges against Dumond for the rape and murder of Andrasek.

I don't know what you think of a man who could read the deeply personal letters from those rape victims and go on to parole the serial rapist anyway.

I don't know what sort of culpability you think Mike Huckabee bears for the deaths of Carol Sue Shields and Sara Andrasek.

But I know what I think.  I'd like the American people to hear this story so we find out what they think, as well.