Caged serial killer Dana Sue Gray has revealed how she was sexually assaulted by a male-on-female trans cellmate at the California prison where she is serving a life sentence without parole.
Gray gained notoriety in the 1990s for stabbing and strangling three elderly neighbors to death so he could steal their credit cards to buy fancy clothes and massages.
Now sentenced to life in prison at the Central California Facility for Women (CCWF), she says she has been sexually assaulted by one of the trans inmates now serving their sentences in women’s prisons.
Gray, 66, describes a “scary and disgusting” attack by the cellmate, who has not had sex reassignment surgery, in which he pulled down his pants and “pushed his dick in my face.” “.
Many people who remember Gray’s gruesome massacre will find it difficult to sympathize with her.
Dana Sue Gray, a serial killer who murdered three elderly women in 1994, pictured here in court in 2004.
Gray and other detainees at the Central California Facility for Women (CCWF) say life changed after trans inmates were allowed to live there.
However, the alleged attack sheds light on life in California women’s prisons, which have seen increasing numbers of sexual assaults since 2021, when a new law allowed trans women to request transfer to them.
In telephone interviews with Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), a nonprofit organization, Gray reveals details about the attack and her fears of caging women with biological men.
When Gray found out early last year that he would be sharing his dorm with a trans inmate, he said it “didn’t bother him” and saw an opportunity to “educate himself” about the trans experience.
She and her cellmate were initially “very friendly,” she says.
Soon that felt “a little strange,” as their interactions became stressful and part of an “abusive relationship,” she says.
He criticized her, said she would die in prison and urged her to stop attending college classes, she says.
Gray says her 6-foot-2 roommate, whom we are not naming, became aggressive.
He approached her bunk one night and subjected her to full-on sexual assault, she says.
“He came into my bed, pulled down his pants and shoved his cock in my face,” he says.
It was “scary and disgusting,” he says. But she had the means to order him to back off, which she did.
He didn’t touch her, she says, calling the attack a “demonstration of male dominance.”
The roommate tried again the next night, she says.
He ‘put that big man’s hand on my back, on my shoulder blade’ and scared her awake.
She kept her composure, he says, and told him: ‘Keep the F out of my area. Never come to my area. Never touch me.
Gray told a guard about the incident and the roommate was moved to another yard, he says.
She did not formally report an assault, she says, because there was no way to prove her accusations, and that would have started a process that would have put her in isolation, which worried her.
Gray achieved notoriety in the 1990s for stabbing and strangling three elderly neighbors to death.
CCWF’s sprawling complex in Chowchilla has been dogged by allegations of sexual violence in its cells for years.
A more recent photo of Gray, taken as part of the rehabilitation course he is studying.
Her experience (and other sexual assaults at the sprawling correctional facility outside Chowchilla in central California) expose flaws in Senate Bill 132, which enshrined the rights of trans inmates, she says.
To request a transfer, trans detainees only have to profess their identity: it is not necessary to take cross-hormones or undergo surgery.
Applications are reviewed by a warden, guards, medical and mental health staff, and a prison rape expert.
Supporters of the law, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2020, say trans detainees are most often victims of abuse and deserve the safety of prisons that match their gender identity.
But Gray, who has been behind bars since 1998, says SB132 changed women’s prisons beyond recognition.
“It’s disgusting and I have to be polite and deal with it for my own safety and to have a less stressful day, but I don’t like it,” Gray said.
‘I don’t want any of them here. I want them to leave.
Female inmates are often vulnerable and poorly educated, Gray says. Some have consensual sexual relations with trans cellmates.
The law shows how politicians sacrificed women-only wards in favor of trans-identified men “with problems,” he says.
“They don’t care,” he says, as they “throw some condoms in there and let them have sex.”
“This degrades women greatly,” he adds.
Gray killed three elderly women in the Canyon Lake area southeast of Los Angeles in 1994, and was captured after a fourth victim survived and identified her.
He took his victims’ credit cards and continued spending heavily on swimsuits, cowboy boots, a ski mask, vodka and a massage at a luxurious spa.
Andrea Mew, who is researching SB132 for the IWF, says even female murderers should be able to serve their sentences in women-only prisons.
“No one deserves to be subjected to sexual harassment,” Mew told DailyMail.com.
“If someone with her reputation is now bravely raising the alarm, there is clearly reason to be seriously concerned about the safety of all inmates.”
A spokeswoman said the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) does not comment on specific cases.
Gray, photographed before the murders, is serving a life sentence without parole at the Central California Facility for Women (CCWF), near Chowchilla in central California.
CCWF detainees and staff held a “day of action” for trans prisoners in January.
Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the transgender prison bill into law in September 2020.
Gray, pictured here as a young woman, says trans inmates have made women’s prisons more dangerous
The department “investigates all allegations of sexual abuse, sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in accordance with our zero-tolerance policy,” it added.
The state system has about 1,997 trans and non-binary detainees.
Some 345 inmates from men’s prisons have requested to be transferred to women’s prisons. Of them, 46 were approved, 64 were denied and 87 inmates changed their minds. The rest is under review.
‘No one deserves to be subjected to sexual harassment,’ says Andrea Mew
Only 16 inmates from women’s prisons have requested transfers; three have been approved.
The CDCR says it reviews applications carefully and only approves them when it is “safe to do so.”
The Transgender Law Center, the ACLU and others say trans detainees are most often victims of abuse and deserve protection.
Allowing them to serve their sentences in prisons that match their gender identity makes them safer, advocates say.
But women’s rights groups warn of rising incidents of rape and other horrors in what were once women-only wards.
They point to Tremaine Carroll, 51, a 6-foot-2 male-to-female trans detainee who has been accused of raping two female inmates in January after being transferred to Chowchilla prison.
One of them, a petite woman in her thirties, says Carroll forcibly entered her in the shower of the eight-room dormitory they shared.
She was traumatized by the attack and relives the ordeal every time she showers, when her heart pounds in her chest, she says.
Carroll is due back in Madera Superior Court for a preliminary hearing on July 8.
Sharon Byrne, director of the Women’s Liberation Front, says SB 132 makes it too easy for any male convicts seeking access to women or a way out of violence-plagued male prisons.
“Any man serving a sentence for violent assault, rape or crime in a men’s prison sees an open door to easily enter a women’s prison,” Byrne says.
‘Who’s not going to take advantage of that?’