A California man known as the “NorCal rapist” who committed a series of brutal attacks over a 15-year period will live the rest of his life behind bars after receiving an 897-year sentence Friday.
Roy Charles Waller, 60, was convicted last month of 46 crimes related to kidnapping, rape, oral intercourse, sodomy and foreign penetration, according to a statement on Friday of the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.
The charges involved assaults nine women in six California counties, which resulted in seven different cases between 1991 and 2006.
The district attorney’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 Sacramento Police Detective Avis Beery said in several cases, Waller broke into the homes of his victims, tied them up and sexually assaulted them repeatedly. Waller used to commit his attacks at night and occasionally took the women to the ATMs to steal 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 at the base at the time. data from state criminal offenders, the district prosecutor’s office said Friday.
However, in September 2018, biological evidence left at one of the crime scenes was used along with investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) to create a specialized DNA profile.
The researchers were able to use this profile to track the author’s possible relatives and, by building family trees, set Waller to zero.
This technology was also used to locate the Golden State killer, who was sentenced to life in prison in August.
Following Waller’s conviction last month, Joe Farina, the man’s defense attorney, said DNA testing posed a major challenge to Waller’s defense.
“It didn’t matter what I did,” Farina said, according to CNN. “It was a case of DNA. We couldn’t get over the fact that his DNA was at almost every crime scene.”
Farina said Affiliated with CBS KPIX on Friday, Waller maintained his innocence and said he would appeal the sentence.
On Friday, the district attorney’s office testified that Waller’s nine victims testified during a month-long trial, as did retired officers, detectives and forensic nurses from various states. Friday’s statement noted that some of these witnesses were retired for a long time and are now in their eighties.
“The victims waited for decades for justice and only through the use of IGG was it possible to identify and arrest Waller,” the lawyer’s office said in a press release, adding that he “wants to thank the original detectives from the agencies in each jurisdiction on these cases who never gave up on prosecuting the offender. ”