A California man known as the “NorCal Rapist” who committed a series of brutal attacks over a 15-year period will now spend the rest of his life behind bars after a prison sentence of 897 years on Friday.
Roy Charles Waller, 60, was convicted last month on 46 counts in connection with kidnapping, violent rape, oral copulation, sodomy and foreign penetration, according to a press release from Friday of the Sacramento County District Attorney.
The charge involved attacks on nine women in six California counties, resulting in seven different cases between 1991 and 2006.
The prosecutor’s office added in Friday’s statement that the 897-year sentence is the maximum allowed by state law.
CNN reported that That’s what Police Detective Avis Beery said in Sacramento In several cases, Waller broke into his victims, tied them up and repeatedly sexually assaulted them. Waller usually carried out his attacks at night and occasionally took the women to ATMs to rob them.
In 2006, DNA evidence allowed police to link six different cases, although law enforcement was unable to link them to Waller, as he was not in the state’s criminal offenders database at the time, the office said. from the prosecutor Friday.
In September 2018, however, biological evidence left at one of the crime scenes was used in conjunction with research genetic genealogy (IGG) to create a specialized DNA profile.
Researchers could then use this profile to track down potential relatives of the perpetrator and, by building family trees, target Waller.
This technology was also used to track down the Golden State Killer, who was sentenced to life in prison in August.
After Waller’s conviction last month, Joe Farina, the man’s attorney, said the DNA evidence was a major challenge to Waller’s defense.
“It didn’t matter what I did,” Farina said, according to CNN. ‘It was a DNA case. We couldn’t get over the fact that his DNA was present at almost all crime scenes. ‘
Farina told CBS partner KPIX on Friday that Waller maintained his innocence and said he would appeal the sentence.
The district attorney’s office said Friday that all nine of Waller’s victims testified in a month-long jury trial, as well as retired officers, detectives, and examiners of forensic nurses from multiple states. Friday’s press release noted that some of these witnesses were long-retired and are currently in their eighties.
“The victims waited decades for justice and it was only through the use of IGG that the identification and arrest of Waller was possible,” the law firm said in the press release, adding that it “would like to thank the agencies’ original investigators. in every jurisdiction over these matters that never gave up the prosecution of the perpetrator. ”