Updated 2 p.m.
The answer to the NorCal rapist case “was in the DNA,” according to Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert.
Schubert, Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn and district attorneys from five counties announced the arrest of Roy Charles Waller, 58, of Benicia. He was was apprehended Thursday in Berkeley.
Investigators had used DNA evidence and modus operandi to link 10 rapes in six Northern California counties beginning in 1991 and ending in 2006.
But detectives didn't have a name for their suspect until this week.
The DA’s crime lab submitted evidence from a rape in Sacramento to the genealogy website Gedmatch 10 days ago. A partial DNA match eventually led investigators to Waller.
Schubert says Waller's DNA was not on the site, but someone related to him had submitted DNA.
Once he was identified as a suspect, investigators acquired two DNA samples from items Waller discarded. Schubert wouldn’t say what the items were, but says the first sample was a match.
"Takes a little bit of time to actually get our lab to do it. They worked at lightning speed and then we did another confirmation yesterday," she said.
Two Sacramento women have been identified as NorCal Rapist victims. DNA also linked the NorCal Rapist to attacks of five women in Woodland on three different dates.
Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig says investigators had a picture of the suspect in 1997.
“In the '97 case, the suspect took the [victim’s] ATM card and used it,” Reisig said. “There's actually a photograph of him. I challenge you to look at the comparison of that ATM photo with this [Waller's driver's license photo]."
The Contra Costa District Attorney Office filed charges against the then-unknown suspect in 2006 to preserve the statute of limitations.
Waller is also a suspect in two rapes in Sonoma County, in 1991 and 1992; one attack in Solano County; and one in Chico. The victim in the Chico case was a college student. She was able to untie herself and stabbed the suspect in the arm with a pair of scissors. The blood and DNA evidence is key in linking that attack to the others.
Waller has been charged with a dozen counts related to the attacks, including kidnapping to commit rape, which carries a life sentence.
He is being held without bail at the Sacramento County Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday afternoon.
UC Berkeley says Waller is currently employed by the school as an environmental health and safety specialist and has worked for the university since 1992.
Original story:
Northern California law enforcement agencies announced Friday that they have in custody a man suspected of being the NorCal Rapist.
They arrested 58-year-old Benicia resident Roy Charles Waller, an employee of UC Berkeley, on campus Thursday morning.
His apprehension comes on the heels of an arrest in the East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer case in April.
Waller’s DNA profile is a positive match for the NorCal Rapist’s profile, according to the Sacramento Police Department. Investigators were able to identify him through a genealogy website, according to a tweet from the department.
His DNA also directly linked him to a sexual assault that happened in October 2006 in Sacramento.
The NorCal Rapist is linked to assaults on 10 women in six different counties from 1991 to 2006.
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