Prosecutors file 28 new charges against suspected NorCal Rapist in Sacramento
Prosecutors on Monday filed 28 new charges against a man they have identified as the NorCal Rapist, adding allegations from victims in five more counties.
Roy Charles Waller, who turns 59 Tuesday, appeared briefly in court in Sacramento, accused of targeting victims in Northern California from 1991 through 2006.
He committed at least 11 sexual assaults during that time, according to officials.
In September, after years of sifting through leads and multiple manhunts, Sacramento County Dist. Atty. Anne Marie Schubert identified Waller, a UC Berkeley employee, as the suspect in the NorCal Rapist case.
Authorities used DNA and information from genealogy websites to find Waller, noting the attacks with which he was linked started in the summer of 1991 in Rohnert Park, when a 21-year-old woman was raped in her home by a man who entered through an unlocked sliding glass door.
In December 1991, another woman was attacked in Sonoma. Sexual assaults in several Northern California counties followed, with investigators saying that the ordeals would last for hours and that the women were blindfolded and sometimes bound with duct tape.
“He would ransack their homes, and sometimes he would kidnap the victims and take them to an ATM, where he would get money out of their accounts,” Det. Avis Beery of the Sacramento Police Department said in an interview with The Times last year. Beery had been investigating the case for more than a decade.
In addition to Sacramento, the attacks are believed to have happened in five other counties: Butte, Contra Costa, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo.
Monday’s charges stemmed from more DNA evidence, officials said, with prosecutors working to consolidate the case for trial in Sacramento.
Waller had worked as a safety specialist at UC Berkeley’s environment, health and safety office since 1992, managing programs to boost training for using machinery, including aerial lifts, forklifts and respirators.
He is expected to return to court for another hearing on March 8.
Twitter: @newsterrier
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