NorCal Rapist sentenced to 897 years for kidnapping, sexually assaulting women

SACRAMENTO — Roy Charles Waller, the notorious NorCal Rapist, was sentenced to 897 years in state prison Friday for attacking, kidnapping and sexually assaulting nine women in Northern California over a 15-year period.

Waller, 60, sat motionless, staring at the table in front of him, for more than an hour as several victims described in court how he had tortured and raped them in their homes.

Nicole Earnest-Payte was raped in her Rohnert Park townhouse one night in the summer of 1991 after Waller came in through through an unlocked door. She said he threatened to kill her as he committed “sadistic and fiendish acts.”

“I thought about how many flies would be on my body, and in what condition it would be found, and how my parents would experience the worst torture any parent can,” Earnest-Payte said. “He is a monster by all modern definitions of the word.”

Chronicle policy is to not identify sexual assault victims, but Earnest-Payte said she wanted her name used to show other survivors that they should not be ashamed.

Waller, a Benicia resident, was arrested in 2018 in Berkeley, where he worked at UC Berkeley’s Environmental, Health and Safety office. He started there in 1992, the year after he began his string of assaults across six counties.

A jury convicted Waller of 46 counts of sexual assault and kidnapping in November, after less than a day of deliberation. The trial was held in Sacramento County because his last two rapes took place there.

Judge James Arguelles of Sacramento County Superior Court handed down the maximum sentence, noting the heinous nature of Waller’s attacks and the fact that he planned them in detail.

Waller could eventually be eligible for elder parole around age 85 under California law, but prosecutors said it is unlikely that he would ever be released because of the brutality of his attacks.

Victims who spoke in court described how Waller tied and blindfolded them and brandished a gun. In one attack on Halloween 1996, he wore a skeleton mask while he raped a woman in Martinez. Weeks later, he called the victim at work to apologize.

Victims said he repeatedly assaulted them while they were tied up for hours. They said he seemed to have methodically planned the attacks.

One victim, identified in court as Jane Doe K of Sacramento, said she was so afraid Waller would return to attack her again that she was unable to shower for 12 years unless her husband or a friend was on speaker phone or inside the house. She said her fear ended the day Waller was arrested.

“He has no remorse, even to this date,” she said. “Only a monster is capable of committing such heinous crimes over and over again.”

Waller attacked Jane Doe T of Vallejo on Feb. 13, 1992. She said she lost the will to live, spent weeks in a mental hospital and has been plagued by anxiety ever since. She yells at her children if they leave doors or windows unlocked.

“I had a lot of anxiety wondering who he was, and if he could be right in front of my eyes,” she said. “I wondered if he ever wondered how much pain and suffering he’s caused.”

Victims said Waller seemed to find many of his victims through classified advertisements seeking a roommate. He committed attacks in Sacramento, Yolo, Butte, Contra Costa, Solano and Sonoma counties.

Prosecutors said they were able to link the assaults using DNA evidence and digital genealogy records that indicated the rapist was a member of Waller’s family.

Waller, who testified that he was innocent, did not speak in court Friday. His attorney, Joseph Farina, said he would appeal.

“Unfortunately, the DNA was just too much and we couldn’t overcome that,” Farina said outside court. “He had his day in court — that’s what he’s constitutionally entitled to.”

Moments later, a group of Waller’s victims walked out of the courthouse together. Earnest-Payte said she felt an overwhelming sense of freedom knowing Waller would die in prison.

“I never have to think about him for one more second of my life, and that is the greatest relief I could ever, ever feel,” Earnest-Payte said. “I feel released.”

Associated Press, November 18, 2020

Man convicted of 9 ‘NorCal Rapist’ attacks from 1991 to 2006

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man nicknamed the NorCal Rapist was convicted Wednesday of raping nine women in their homes between 1991 and 2006 after investigators used DNA technology to identify him.

A jury in Sacramento found Roy Charles Waller, 60, guilty on all 46 counts after 2 1/2 hours of deliberations a day earlier.

Waller showed no emotion and looked down at the defendant’s table when the jury’s decision was read, the Sacramento Bee reported. He faces life in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 18.

Waller raped women in six Northern California counties, from Sacramento to Chico. Sometimes he would kidnap the women and force them to withdraw money from ATMs and steal their personal items.

Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn called the crimes “horrific,” saying the victims were terrorized for hours at a time.

Prosecutors said they used the same DNA and genealogy websites to zero in on Waller that they used to arrest former police officer Joseph DeAngelo in the Golden State Killer case. DeAngelo pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges stemming from crimes spanning the 1970s and 1980s. He was sentenced in August to multiple life terms.

Prosecutors credited the DNA evidence with ensuring Waller’s conviction.

“DNA technology is the greatest tool given to the justice system to exonerate the innocent and convict the guilty,” Sacramento County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Grippi said in a statement. “Law enforcement officers and detectives involved in the investigation never stopped searching for the truth.”

Waller was arrested in September 2018 at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for 25 years as a safety specialist in the office of environment, health and safety.

During the trial, defense attorney Joseph Farina accused authorities of overreach by taking a straw and half-eaten pear from garbage outside Waller’s home to get his DNA, and he questioned whether DNA found at the crime scenes had been preserved properly over the years.

Farina declined to comment as he left the courthouse Wednesday.

Prosecutors portrayed Waller as an organized and cunning criminal who stalked potential victims and collected information about their appearance, movements and vehicles and kept it in computer databases that he still had when he was arrested. Investigators also found zippered bags filled with duct tape, zip ties, handcuffs and other items used in the attacks in Waller’s two storage lockers.

Prosecutors said he sought out women of Asian descent, grading them on their appearance and build and studying their daily routines until he could slip into their homes and attack them.