Rape victim Tameka Ridgeway speaks out

The year was 1986. Tameka Ridgeway, 17, and her 22-year-old fiance, Dean Allie, had recently moved into their first home in Glenorchy.

The year was 1986. Tameka Ridgeway, 17, and her 22-year-old fiance, Dean Allie, had recently moved into their first home in Glenorchy.

On Valentine’s Day they visited Dean’s parents, laughing over dinner, before returning to the small flat. It was the last night the newly engaged couple would ever spend alive together.

The following morning, they woke to intruders attacking them at knifepoint.

“I woke up with a hand over my mouth and a knife on the left side of my neck,” says Tameka, now aged 51.

“I could feel the point of the knife pressing into my neck. I was still only half awake and I didn’t know what this man was going to do to me.”

The two intruders, Jamie John Curtis, 30, and his 16-year-old accomplice, dragged Tameka to the living area where she was forced to watch as they brutally bashed her fiance, binding Dean’s hands and feet, before torturing him with boiling water.

They then turned their focus on Tameka.

According to Tameka’s police statement, the men then raped her 13 times over a sustained period of time.

“They raped me in the most degrading way, verbally taunting me and saying and doing the most sadistic things,” Tameka tells the Mercury.

“I was disgusted but I told myself to just get it over and done with and do whatever they say. It felt like it would never end.”

Later it would be discovered that Tameka was not the first teen girl the men attacked that morning. Following a night of heavy drinking in Salamanca, Curtis and his accomplice had spent the wee hours of the morning cruising around Hobart prowling for a victim to rape.

Initially they approached two women in Sandy Bay, offering them lifts. When that proved unsuccessful, the pair escalated their efforts, and at around 5am they used a knife to abduct a 15-year-old delivery girl who was completing her paper round.

When she managed to break free from the boot of their vehicle, the men became enraged. They decided to settle on a target much closer to home: a 17-year-old supermarket cashier who lived on Curtis’ street.

Dean’s beloved car, which he and Tameka were abducted in.

“I immediately recognised the older one, from next door,” says Tameka, who can finally reveal the association to the ringleader. “I’d seen him around, but I’d never spoken to him before.”

When the sexual assaults finally ended, Tameka hoped the men would leave. Instead she and Dean were abducted at knifepoint, and taken in Dean’s car. They were driven 50km northwest to a secluded paddock in Gretna.

“Curtis told the young one to take out the chainsaw which they had packed from Curtis’ flat. The young one started it up and Curtis said ‘have you ever felt the blade of the chainsaw on your skin? It will be just like the chainsaw massacre movie’.

“Curtis then told us that he was going to give us a two-minute headstart to run into the woods and then they would come hunting us with the chainsaw.”

Mug shot of Jamie John Curtis. #LetHerSpeak

For more than an hour Curtis and his accomplice taunted Dean and Tameka, debating before them whether to slaughter them with a shotgun, a knife or the chainsaw.

Eventually the pair locked Tameka in the boot of her car.

“They closed the lid and I heard Dean crying,” says Tameka. “I remember that vividly. I remember the terror and thinking this is the day I am going to die. I heard Dean say, ‘No please’.

“That was the last thing I ever heard Dean say.”

For 12 hours Tameka was then kept hostage before the men finally passed out. She was discovered by a passing farmer who alerted police.

At the time of his capture, there were outstanding warrants for Curtis’ arrest in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. He had also served jail time in Queensland.

But just eight months later, in October 1986, Curtis broke out of Risdon Prison in a laundry cart, triggering a statewide manhunt.

Armed with a prison table knife which had been sharpened to a point, the heavily tattooed 183cm fugitive led police on a wild-goose chase across the state. Air and sea ports were closed or put on tight surveillance, roadblocks were erected, and eventually, an entire media blackout was imposed after detectives speculated that Curtis was evading police by listening to news reports on the radio.

Nine days later, Curtis was apprehended by a police squad, following a tip-off from the public.

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He was growing a beard, had replaced his clothes and, chillingly, was caught on a neighbouring country property to where Tameka was being kept under police guard.

“I got a phone call and they told me they got him. They told me to look out the window and I would see him driving past in just a moment and that I could wave.”

Since then, Tameka has lived in a heightened state of fear, amplified by her PTSD which she still has to this day.

In June 2018, despite pleas from Tameka and Dean’s family, Curtis was released on parole.

The parole board decision noted at the time that Curtis still displayed a “high number of psychopathic traits” which “cannot be cured”, but went on to praise his “polite and courteous” engagement with prison staff.

Within weeks of his release, Curtis set up a prohibited Facebook account under the alias ‘Steve Johnson’ and joined multiple online dating sites including eHarmony, Plenty of Fish, Be Naughty, Naughty Date, Zoosk and Be2.

Three months later, police took out a restraining order against him, fearful that he would kill a woman who he had met through one of those dating websites.

Papers lodged with the Magistrates Court detailed swelling on the woman’s jaw, right cheek and right eye, and a large bruise.

“Last time he got out, my life stopped. His freedom ended my freedom. He shows no remorse and no respect for the law” says Tameka.

Tameka now intends to use her public profile to advocate for victim’s rights, and reforms to the criminal justice system, in the hopes that Curtis will be required to see out his life sentence behind bars. I want to live my life in peace. I just want a normal life.”

Nina Funnell is the creator of the #LetHerSpeak campaign which is a collaboration between End Rape On Campus Australia and Marque Lawyers. To contribute towards the legal costs for the #LetHerSpeak campaign visit: https://au.gofundme.com/f/wq34q-let-her-speak