NorCal Rapist trial revelations: Sacramento police questioned Waller 13 years ago

“DNA is the answer.”

That is the essence of the prosecution case against NorCal Rapist suspect Roy Charles Waller, whose trial began Monday in Sacramento with Deputy District Attorney Keith Hill outlining how investigators pinpointed the 60-year-old Benicia man as the mysterious rapist who attacked nine women from 1991 through 2006.

Waller, who was arrested in September 2018 after authorities say they tied his DNA to crime scenes from the string of attacks by an armed, masked man, faces 46 felony counts of rape, kidnap and other charges.

Authorities have said Waller never before had been a suspect in the case, but Hill revealed Monday how close Sacramento police came to him 13 years ago when he and his then-girlfriend were questioned by two officers.

On Feb. 11, 2007, officers questioned Waller and his girlfriend, Olga Coy, who lived in Fairfield and was the owner of a white Toyota 4Runner.

At the time, investigators were scrutinizing thousands of owners of 4Runners because that type of vehicle had been spotted at the scene of the last NorCal Rapist attack in Natomas in October 2006.

More than 100 men had been questioned and been swabbed for DNA samples, with all of them excluded as a suspect.

But Sacramento police did not swab Waller at the time because they determined he did not appear to be the right age as the suspect and did not match a composite drawing, defense attorney Joe Farina said in his opening statement.

Instead, they filled out a one-page questionnaire and left without obtaining a DNA sample or taking a photo of the Toyota.

Thirteen years later, Sacramento investigators using DNA samples from the crime scenes and an online database found a potential relative of the rapist, then built out a family tree that led them to Waller, who was married and living in Benicia at the time.

After obtaining a drinking straw from his trash and matching the DNA on it to the crime scene DNA, Waller was arrested by Sacramento police.

Prosecutors: Waller tried suicide

Police questioned him at police headquarters in Sacramento, where he denied having seen any of the nine victims before, Hill said, then left him in the interview room with a camera still running.

Waller, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt at the time, later was seen on video trying to hang himself three times by tying the hoodie string around his neck and trying to latch it onto a door hinge, Hill said.

Farina objected, saying the jury should not be allowed to hear such evidence.

“This is a complete fantasy,” Farina said, but Sacramento Superior Court Judge James Arguelles allowed Hill to continue.

Hill also revealed that searches of Waller’s storage lockers after his arrest turned up a large plastic bag that contained 20 pairs or women’s panties, including one brown thong with pink lace that matched underwear taken from a Sacramento victim, Hill said.

Investigators also found zip ties, masks, duct tape, handcuffs and condoms, Hill said.

Hill described the similarities of the attacks that began in Rohnert Park in 1991 and continued over the years in Vallejo, Martinez, Davis, Chico and Sacramento.

The attacks typically lasted for hours as the attacker came into victims’ homes wearing a mask and gloves. The rapist came armed either with a knife or handgun, and tied up his victims with duct tape, zip ties, ropes or handcuffs and placed tape over their eyes, Hill said.

Victim describes six-hour attack

Prosecutors plan to call all nine women who were victims of the NorCal Rapist, and the first witness Monday was “T. Doe,” who was attacked Feb. 13, 1992, in her Vallejo home. Outside the courtroom, she identified herself as Theresa Lane.

Lane, speaking in a halting, soft voice, described waking up in her locked bedroom that morning after hearing someone trying to turn her doorknob.

She went out to the hall, where she saw a man hiding behind the master bathroom door. She ran back to her bedroom, she said, planning to leap through her second-floor window to get away.

“I was thinking of a way out,” she said, facing Hill as he questioned her and never appearing to glance at Waller. “If I had to jump out the window, that’s what I was going to do.”

But she tripped and the attacker was on her, she said.

“It felt like we were fighting for a while,” she said. “I remember trying to get his mask off...,” she said. “I was screaming.”

The repeated sexual assaults continued for nearly six hours, she said, with the attacker disappearing into other parts of her house at times. She later discovered her personal phone book downstairs opened to her mother’s address and phone number with an arrow pointing toward it and a note saying, “Don’t call the cops.”

“I remember talking to him a lot, asking why he was at my house, why he picked my house,” she said. “I was not exactly sure what was going to happen next.

“I just felt it was kind of a survival thing, just talk to him. Maybe I thought I could make him leave or something.”

Lane kept her composure for much of her testimony, but broke into tears as she recounted waiting for hours for her attacker to leave.

“Then I just pulled the heck out of the rope and I got free and I called the police,” she said.

The man was armed with a rusty knife, she said, and she grabbed the blade with her bare hand, cutting herself but snapping off the tip, which she used to jab into his forehead above his right eye.

Hill said Waller has a faint scar in the spot on his face, but Farina said there is no such scar, and told the jury that there are inconsistencies in how the various attacks were carried out, as well as problems with the storage and analysis of the DNA evidence.

He dismissed the fact that investigators found panties and other items, including adult toys and a vibrator, after Waller’s arrest.

“There may be evidence that Mr. Waller had a lot of panties,” Farina said. “He was married at the time.”

And, he added, none of the “complaining witnesses” — Waller’s alleged victims — can identify Waller as their attacker.

“Nobody could identify him,” Farina said. “Nobody had seen him.

“They didn’t know who he was.”

Lane completed her testimony and, as she walked by the defense table, stared directly at Waller for the first time. Then, she walked out holding back tears.

“I did (look at him) and it felt so good,” Lane told reporters outside the courthouse.

The trial, which is being held in the largest courtroom downtown, is expected to last for weeks and is being held with jurors spread throughout the room because of COVID-19.

About 35 people, including the lawyers, jurors and media, are in the room, which was used earlier this year for victim impact statements in the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist case against Joseph James DeAngelo.