Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Tuesday, March 19, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

NorCal Police Credit DNA in Arrest of Rape Suspect

Five months after authorities cracked a decades-old cold case by nabbing the Golden State Killer, law enforcement officials announced Friday the capture of another notorious California predator, the NorCal rapist, who is accused of raping at least 10 women over 15 years.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) -- Five months after authorities cracked a decades-old cold case by nabbing the Golden State Killer, law enforcement officials announced Friday the capture of another notorious California predator, the NorCal rapist, who is accused of raping at least 10 women over 15 years.

Officers arrested 58-year-old Roy Charles Waller Thursday morning as he arrived at work at the University of California Berkeley. Authorities found Waller by applying the same method used to catch the Golden State Killer – matching old crime scene DNA with data uploaded to the website of a Florida-based genealogy company called GED match.

"The answer has always been in the DNA," Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said during a press conference at the state capital Friday morning.

Waller is suspected of raping at least 10 women in Rohnert Park, Sonoma, Vallejo, Martinez, Woodland, Chico, Davis and Sacramento from the early 1990s to mid-2000s. The first known assault took place in Rohnert Park in 1991. The most recent assault occurred in Sacramento in 2006.

According to authorities, Waller is married and lives in the waterside city of Benicia in Solano County. He has worked as a safety specialist in UC Berkeley's Environmental Health and Safety Office since 1992, where he manages safety and training programs for the use of equipment such as forklifts, aerial lifts and respirators, according to the college.

The university said in a statement Friday that it was "shocked" to learn one of its longtime employees was arrested for allegedly committing a series of rapes. Although there is no indication Waller committed any crimes on campus, the university said it was reviewing open sexual assault cases to determine if any might be related.

Sacramento police said the NorCal Predator would enter women's homes, usually late at night and sometimes while they were sleeping. He would overpower them, bind them, and repeatedly rape them. He also ransacked victims' homes and sometimes took them to ATMs to force them to withdraw money from their accounts.

"The suspect in this case was a real life boogie man who crept into victim's homes in the cover of darkness and attacked them when they were most vulnerable," Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said during Friday’s press conference. "His days of inflicting such terror are over."

Schubert credited law enforcement officials from six California counties - Butte, Contra Costa, Sacramento, Solano, Sonoma, and Yolo - for cooperating with Sacramento's investigators to help catch the suspected rapist.

Waller faces 12 counts of forcible sexual assault with enhancements for using a gun that could put him behind bars for life. He is set to be arraigned on Monday in Sacramento.

Follow @NicholasIovino
Categories / Criminal, Law

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...