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OLYMPIA, Wash. - Washington Governor Bob Ferguson stepped in to cancel the parole of a serial rapist who was slated for release after serving 40 years of a life sentence.
The Governor's Office announced Wednesday that Billy Van Court will not be getting parole after he fled the state and destroyed his phone when he was previously released in 2023.
Van Court was in and out of jail for many years for multiple violent crimes, including burglaries, robberies, assaults and rapes, and fled parole several times. In 1983, he escaped parole once again and went on a sexual crime spree, assaulting at least six victims, including children.
According to Department of Corrections records, Van Court was sentenced to life in prison, and served 40 years before the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board determined he was eligible for parole.
What went wrong?
Dig deeper:
Van Court was released on parole in 2023, and in January 2025, he had fled the state and destroyed his phone so he would not be tracked. His parole was subsequently revoked, and he went back to prison.
The board then found him eligible for parole again in October 2025, with a parole order issued in February 2026.
Bob Ferguson canceled that order on Tuesday, which means that Van Court will remain incarcerated.
The governor's office argues that, despite decades of prison time and rehabilitation programming, "Van Court has repeatedly been assessed at high risk to reoffend." A psychological assessment conducted by the review board in 2025 found he was highly likely to reoffend with a violent offense within five years of his release.
"I am concerned that programming has not had the desired effect. Having considered the ISRB record, I am unconvinced that Mr. Van Court is truly rehabilitated and fit for release at this time," wrote Ferguson to the review board. "I respectfully disagree with the ISRB and do not find that Mr. Van Court's rehabilitation is complete."
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The Source: Information in this story comes from the Office of Governor Bob Ferguson, as well as records from the Washington State Department of Corrections' Indeterminate Sentence Review Board.