00:00:00
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: June, 1991, it
seems like a quiet summer evening in northern California,
but in reality, a terrifying
00:00:20
crime spree is just beginning. It's the absolute
most frightening thing that any woman could
ever experience.
00:00:32
And all I'm thinking is, how
do I get this psychopath out of my house and not get shot?
00:00:37
I was 21, and I'm just
going to be a statistic. NANCY GRACE: It's the
beginning of a 27-year search
00:00:44
for a sex predator
who will become known as the NorCal rapist. He is a monster and
definitely a boogeyman.
00:00:58
NANCY GRACE: He
strikes in small towns across northern California,
Rohnert Park, Martinez, Davis,
00:01:04
Chico, places that
rarely make the news, until the NorCal
rapist goes there. We just needed to
go out and do good
00:01:14
old-fashioned police work,
which was knock on the door, talk to people. NANCY GRACE: The NorCal rapist
identity plagues investigators
00:01:23
for nearly three decades. This rapist took a number
of her personal items, heart
00:01:29
necklace, pajamas,
comforter, things that maybe years later, days
later, he could fixate on
00:01:37
and relive what he had
done to this woman. NANCY GRACE: When cases go
cold, investigators now turn
00:01:44
to new ground-breaking
technology, investigative genetic genealogy. Genetic genealogy is
definitely a game-changer.
00:01:54
It means you can be held
accountable at any time. The scope of the NorCal rapist
sex assaults is staggering.
00:02:04
Only with cutting-edge
science and determined police work is there any hope
at all he will ever be stopped.
00:02:13
I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] June, 1991, Rohnert Park in
California's Sonoma County.
00:02:47
A quiet town, which
on June 23, 1991, finds its sleepy
reputation shattered. NICOLE EARNEST-PAYTE: I woke
up to a hand over my mouth
00:02:59
and a gun at my temple. I thought this was
a joke at first. I thought somebody was
playing some weird prank.
00:03:06
He told me to stay quiet. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just here to rob you. And I immediately, when I
started to sort of come to,
00:03:14
like, oh, this is-- what's
happening right now? One, panic started to kick in. I was very scared.
00:03:19
And then, I immediately
thought about my robe. Because it was a very--
it was the summertime,
00:03:23
so it was a really
short little robe, and I was completely
unclothed underneath.
00:03:27
And I just thought, I have this
strange person in my house. I don't know who this is, and
I was incredibly vulnerable.
00:03:34
And I was thinking, he's
just here to rob me. I kept thinking that
over and over in my head.
00:03:40
And then, he tried to
pick me up at that point, he tried to swoop me up
still with the gun on me.
00:03:45
And I sort of shook my head
like, don't pick me up, because my robe was
going to come open.
00:03:49
And he let me kind
of get myself up, and then he put my
hands behind my back and kept the gun on my head
and walked me upstairs.
00:04:00
He put duct tape over
my eyes, my mouth, and then, he hogtied me. He was incredibly monotone
and calm the whole time,
00:04:09
until he couldn't find this
very expensive video camera that my ex-boyfriend
borrowed from my mother, who
00:04:16
had a commercial
production company. The video camera was
returned to my mother probably three to four
weeks before this happened,
00:04:25
so I was starting to put
together the timeline of how long, from things
he was telling me,
00:04:31
the timeline of the camera,
how long he had been watching, because he
told me he had been
00:04:35
following me and stalking me. And he knew what my
ex-boyfriend looked like. He knew what the guy I was
hanging out with looked like.
00:04:42
He knew my patterns. He knew where I worked. So I knew that he
had been watching
00:04:47
me for probably six weeks. NANCY GRACE: The intruder seems
to have planned his crime well
00:04:54
in advance, though the
victim has yet to discover his true intentions. He cut my feet loose,
kind of turned me over.
00:05:04
My hands were still
underneath me. And then, opened up my
robe, and then, that's
00:05:09
the first time he raped me. After, he told me
this isn't going to be as bad as you think.
00:05:13
He was sort of in
this fantasy that we were in a real relationship. He turned on love songs.
00:05:18
You know, he would cuddle. And all I'm thinking is, how
do I get this psychopath out
00:05:24
of my house and not get shot? I kept thinking
about my parents. And that's still, to this day,
the thing that makes me cry.
00:05:32
Because I was 21, and
all I could think of was, my parents are going
to get that call,
00:05:38
and I'm just going
to be a statistic. I'm going to be another woman
who was raped in her house
00:05:44
and killed by some stranger,
and I don't want to be that. And so I actually laid
there picturing, like, OK,
00:05:52
it's summertime.
It's warm. No one's expecting me tomorrow. No one's expecting me
at work until Tuesday.
00:05:57
How long is it going to be
until someone finds my body? What condition is
it going to be in?
00:06:02
How many flies are
going to be on me? These are the things
I was thinking about,
00:06:05
because I didn't want
my mother and my father to have to suffer that. AVIS BEERY: When he
was inside the house,
00:06:13
he turned the radio on. And he would change the
channels, and put music on, and then, when he
left, he told her
00:06:20
to wait through a certain amount
of songs, three or four songs, before she did anything
or tried to escape.
00:06:27
And I waited three songs,
for three songs to go by, and then ripped
the duct tape off.
00:06:33
As a survivor of
sex assault, Nicole chose to waive her right to
anonymity so she could share
00:06:41
her story, the story of
how she and other survivors suffered at the hands
of the NorCal rapist.
00:06:49
She hopes that her
public testimony will help other survivors of sex
assault overcome their trauma.
00:07:00
After she reports
the crime, Nicole is invited to the
local police station, but what happens next
is disheartening.
00:07:10
It's appalling. And unfortunately, not at
all unheard of in 1991. The police officers
didn't believe her.
00:07:21
They thought that she
was making this up. NICOLE EARNEST-PAYTE: I
was there for many hours.
00:07:27
And it agitated the
female detective more and more every minute. It felt like-- I'm thinking, why is
she getting aggressive?
00:07:36
This is really strange. It escalated. It just kept
escalating from there. And it just got really,
really bad to the point where,
00:07:44
you know, you're not normal. You're not reacting right. Nobody reacts like this.
00:07:47
This is insane. This doesn't happen. NANCY GRACE: Eight long
months pass, and Nicole's case
00:07:55
hits a dead end. Then, February,
1992, another woman is sexually assaulted
in the town of Vallejo
00:08:04
in the San Francisco Bay Area. It's just 20 miles
from the first attack. Is there a link between
the two sex attacks?
00:08:13
We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING] 1991, Sonoma County, California.
00:08:31
Detectives investigating a
sex assault in Rohnert Park by a man who will become
known as the NorCal rapist.
00:08:39
But six months
after that attack, he strikes again in
nearby Vallejo city. I lived there for a couple--
00:08:49
month or so by myself, and I
was going to school and working. She worked for FedEx, and
she had certain days off,
00:08:59
and so she was sleeping
in that morning. She always kept her
door locked at night.
00:09:03
And so she unlocked her
door and she came out, and she went down the hallway
and she saw this person
00:09:07
hiding in her bathroom. He jumped after me, and
then, I went into the bedroom, and he had--
00:09:16
had a knife, and I
grabbed the knife and just tried to
just stab him with it. And we fought for a
while, and then, I
00:09:26
tried to run out the window. It was like a bad
horror movie where she runs toward the window to
try to either escape or scream
00:09:36
for help, and then she trips. And then he was on top
of me and on the ground. And so he put his hand,
you know, over my mouth,
00:09:50
and just, like, wouldn't let go. So then, I kind of-- I just was like, having
a hard time breathing,
00:09:57
and I guess I just
couldn't fight anymore. After the third or fourth
time after he raped me,
00:10:03
I remember just saying, lay
there and try to be strong. But I wasn't, in that
moment, constantly
00:10:09
thinking he was
going to kill me, just what he was
going to do with me. NANCY GRACE: The
attacker threatens
00:10:16
not only the woman
he just assaulted, but her loved ones as well. AVIS BEERY: He put an
arrow toward her family
00:10:24
that she had in
her address book, indicating to her that he knew
who her family was, where they
00:10:32
lived, that he could
come back at any time, hurt them, or hurt her. I was able to get
out of the bindings,
00:10:40
and then, I called
the cops instantly. But I remember saying,
you know, I don't know
00:10:46
if he's still in the house. NANCY GRACE: Police arrive,
and this time, they immediately
00:10:54
offer support to the victim. They also began to
gather evidence. KRISHNA ABRAMS: Most important
is the well-being of the victim
00:11:02
who, as you know, in this case,
when the police get there, she's crying. She's just been raped.
00:11:07
And the first thing is to
get her to a point of safety, and also, to get
her to the hospital,
00:11:11
because they obviously do
want to do a sexual assault examination of her to see if
there was any evidence left
00:11:17
behind from the sexual assault. NANCY GRACE: It's disturbing
to both detectives and victims
00:11:23
that the rapist leaves with
a number of the victim's intimate personal belongings.
00:11:31
ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT:
This rapist took a number of her personal items, heart
necklace, pajamas, a comforter,
00:11:37
things that maybe years later,
days later, he could fixate on and relive what he had
done to this woman.
00:11:47
She was able to tell law
enforcement that he had some kind of Southern drawl. THERESA LANE: I remember
trying to get the mask off.
00:11:54
I remember seeing
that he was white. And I remember seeing some
kind of like, blondish hair.
00:12:00
And I did feel like he was tall. AVIS BEERY: He stole
her car when he left, which is how he got out
of the neighborhood.
00:12:07
At that point, it
was broad daylight. So if he had just
left on foot, there was a chance that
the police would
00:12:13
have found him walking on foot. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: Law
enforcement did everything
00:12:18
they could in the immediate
days following this, but once they ran out of leads,
then the case became cold.
00:12:24
Even though it was
30 plus years ago, they have the training to
make sure that they preserve
00:12:29
that scene so that
even if the tools are not available now, or
then, that perhaps,
00:12:33
later on, they can use it. Halloween night. Once again, in northern
California, a rapist strikes.
00:12:44
This sex assault has all the
hallmarks of the NorCal rapist. She had answered the door
thinking-- this was like,
00:12:55
9:00ish or so in the
evening, that it was probably a late trick-or-treater. And but when opened
the door, he was there
00:13:03
and wearing a Halloween mask. AVIS BEERY: He
barged into her home and immediately
took control of her.
00:13:14
He told her that he was not
going to hurt her, that he wanted money, not to scream.
00:13:22
And he took her upstairs. He used some of her dog
leashes and he bound her with the dog leashes,
and then, he sexually
00:13:29
assaulted her multiple times. NANCY GRACE: Again, the
assailant slips away silently.
00:13:36
She luckily called 911 and
reported this so that officers could respond right away.
00:13:42
Every piece of evidence
that may have been relevant, everything he touched,
everything he left behind,
00:13:48
the sexual assault kit,
all of those things became critical
pieces of evidence later for identifying
who this man was.
00:13:55
NANCY GRACE: Then, in 1997,
another copycat attack takes place in Davis County. We quickly decided
that, most likely,
00:14:05
it was the same suspect. There is a brutal serial
sex attacker on the loose. Can police track him down this
time before he strikes again?
00:14:18
Next, on "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING] Northern California,
January, 1997.
00:14:33
Three vicious sex attacks
with striking similarities have already happened,
all since 1991,
00:14:41
and now, a fourth attack occurs. I was called at home, it
was on a Saturday morning,
00:14:48
and asked to respond to the
address because of a rape. I talked to the
victims, who were
00:14:56
still present in the apartment,
and introduced myself. And also, I had them show
me around the apartment,
00:15:04
downstairs and upstairs. Both girls were Vietnamese,
conversant in English, but not real good.
00:15:16
So I told them, feel free
to write it in Vietnamese, and then we could later
have it translated.
00:15:23
The suspect had hogtied
both women in the downstairs of the apartment. One of them tried to escape.
00:15:30
She ran up the stairs and
tried to jump out the window, and he grabbed her before
she was able to get away
00:15:37
and dragged her back downstairs. And then, proceeded
to rape them both. The evidence that
was left behind
00:15:43
was some of the duct tape, some
that was still on their hands. But all the other
bindings and everything
00:15:51
were removed and were
not present at the time. NANCY GRACE: Before
leaving, the NorCal rapist
00:15:59
takes his victims'
bank cards and then uses them at a nearby ATM. Police are alerted
and immediately
00:16:08
examine the footage from the
bank machine security camera. I then went to
the nearest bank
00:16:16
and talked to them about it. They indicated that they-- when they came to work
on Monday morning,
00:16:23
they found that the camera lens
had been spray painted black. But they figured
it was vandalism,
00:16:32
and then, they reported
that to the police, who then came and asked for the tape.
00:16:40
And it does show the suspect
wearing an opaque plastic hard surface mask. At one point, he even
turns his head up
00:16:52
and away so that the
camera could show, kind of indicating it's a mask. And gave me the impression is,
OK, guys, catch me if you can.
00:17:06
NANCY GRACE: Police
do what they can to unmask this elusive suspect. We had quite a
few leads, actually.
00:17:14
But I wouldn't
call them success, since any suspect we
identified was all eliminated,
00:17:21
mostly by DNA. NANCY GRACE: Six
long months go by. The NorCal rapist
appears to be lying low.
00:17:30
But then, in Chico,
California, he strikes again. AVIS BEERY: That
case in Chico was
00:17:38
another feisty
little firecracker of a victim who was
not going to let this guy get the best of her.
00:17:46
She was able to
get loose from some of the bindings on
her wrists and she was able to grab some
scissors on the nightstand.
00:17:54
She was able to stab
him with the scissors, and he was bleeding pretty good. He was aware of DNA
and blood testing,
00:18:02
and he knew that he was going
to leave something behind, and he didn't want that.
00:18:06
So he got towels and
he tried to clean up the blood with the towels. He did the same thing to her
that he did the other victims.
00:18:13
He raped her
repeatedly, sexually assaulted her in other ways,
stole things from her home.
00:18:20
Investigators just
might have the ingredients for a breakthrough in the case. The NorCal rapist's efforts
to remove all his DNA evidence
00:18:30
fails, and the latest victim
is able to help detectives with a description of the perp.
00:18:39
They had some basic
information, enough to put out a sketch of
a potential perpetrator,
00:18:43
but it was very, very basic. There was not
enough that led them to any particular individual.
00:18:50
NANCY GRACE: Detectives
still cannot crack the case, and once again, it goes cold.
00:18:57
Then, 2006, the
case is reopened. Why? Because of cutting-edge
advances in forensic science.
00:19:07
AVIS BEERY: Was there
evidence that we could go back and we could get DNA from now
with the advancements that
00:19:13
had taken place by the
time 2006 rolled around? Was there bedding? Were there towels?
00:19:19
Was there underwear or clothing,
anything that we could retest to try to get a better profile,
or, in some of the cases
00:19:29
that were linked strictly
by MO, we were really hoping that we might be able
to get DNA from those cases
00:19:35
and find out if this was,
indeed, our suspect, as we suspected that he might be.
00:19:42
NANCY GRACE: Three police
forces in three different areas are investigating
these horrific attacks.
00:19:48
And then, a detective in Davis
County connects the dots. My first real break
came from an FBI agent
00:19:59
from San Francisco who had
seen that initial teletype that we put out, talking
about a case in Martinez.
00:20:12
Martinez police were aware
of a case in Vallejo. So I called and talked
to detectives there.
00:20:20
And it just kind of
snowballed at that point. Most likely, it was
the same suspect.
00:20:30
If it's the same suspect, it's
very possible his identity can be determined from
the Combined DNA Index
00:20:39
System we all know as CODIS. CODIS collects DNA samples from
criminals all across the US,
00:20:47
and it has over 15
million samples on file. We don't have a name. We don't have any
idea who he is.
00:20:55
His DNA has been
entered into CODIS. But the second thing we
learn is that he's also
00:21:01
responsible for at
least six other rapes throughout the
state of California. Then it was realized that they
have this serial rapist running
00:21:14
around northern California
who was ultimately dubbed the NorCal rapist. NANCY GRACE: News
that a serial rapist
00:21:21
is operating in northern
California intensifies. So far, DNA is
yielding no leads.
00:21:28
Investigators return
to his previous victims to look for clues. AVIS BEERY: Once I
was assigned the case,
00:21:35
I made contact with
them and re-interviewed to introduce myself and
let them know, you know,
00:21:41
that I was taking
over the case, and let them know what we had done so
far so that they understood
00:21:46
that things were
happening, that we weren't just forgetting
about the case and not doing anything.
00:21:53
All the victims told me
that their whole life, they looked over their shoulder. I remember going
into a hospital,
00:22:02
and, you know, I learned a lot. I learned that there's so many
people in this world that--
00:22:11
that things happen
to, and they-- they don't share, you know? And I've always been very
open about this, you know?
00:22:24
And I just always
kept saying that-- because, you know, I haven't had
the greatest life before that,
00:22:31
and just different things, you
know, but I just used to say, he's not going to put
me in my own jail.
00:22:39
So I said, I'm going
to move to Washington. And I'm like, because he's
not going to be there.
00:22:45
Because I never knew who he
was, what he looked like. So I moved to Washington,
lived there for two years.
00:22:52
And just, it helped me
through a lot, you know? NICOLE EARNEST-PAYTE:
I came home.
00:23:01
It was like, 8 o'clock at night. There was a card on my door, and
it said the Sacramento Police
00:23:04
would like to talk to you. The sex crimes division. And my heart sank,
because I thought,
00:23:10
oh, my god, they caught him. They caught him after
all these years. And so I left him a voicemail.
00:23:15
He called me right back. And he said, you know, I just
want to give you the heads up.
00:23:20
There's going to be a
press conference tomorrow. And he just started talking
about this press conference.
00:23:23
And I said, whoa, whoa,
press conference about what? And he said, well,
you are Nicole
00:23:29
Earnest that lived in Rohnert
Park in 1991 and this happened? Yeah.
Yeah. That's me.
00:23:34
What are you talking about? And he said, the
press conference to talk about the case.
00:23:38
And I said, what case? What are you talking about? And he said, the
man who attacked
00:23:44
you is a serial rapist. He's done this 10 times. He's connected by
DNA in every case.
00:23:48
It happened in Sacramento
a few weeks ago, and we're going to
have a press conference
00:23:51
tomorrow to talk about it,
to get publicity on the case to try to get him caught.
00:23:55
I went into absolute shock. I was bowled over,
shaking, crying, I'm sure screaming
at this point.
00:24:05
And he said, Rohnert Park
never called you to tell you? They never re-interviewed you?
00:24:09
They didn't tell you
there were more victims? And I said, no, they've not
said a word for 15 years.
00:24:14
And then that pain just
started all over again. NANCY GRACE: The press
conference takes place,
00:24:20
but still, the rapist
appears untouchable. Then, detectives try
another approach,
00:24:26
the use of familial DNA. AVIS BEERY: About a year
after the crime occurred in Sacramento,
all I did was work
00:24:36
that case for that entire time. I didn't do anything else. That's what I focused on.
00:24:40
Once that case went cold,
then we started to do what we called familial DNA. I had actually solved a previous
rape series with familial DNA.
00:24:54
The DNA that's in CODIS, it
gets compared on a weekly basis to new samples that come in, and
if there's anything that looks
00:25:04
remotely close to your suspect,
you get notified by DOJ, and then, you can do
some work up on that
00:25:12
and see if you can
come up with a suspect. Well, we did that
regularly, and we never
00:25:17
got anything that matched. Never got anything close. So that didn't help. But that was really--
00:25:23
that was really my last
hope, was that we'd get a familial DNA hit,
or that, unfortunately,
00:25:31
if he struck again, he
might get caught in the act. Neither of those
things happened.
00:25:35
NANCY GRACE: 25 long years
have passed since the NorCal rapist claims his first victim.
00:25:42
Yet, he still evades capture. In those 25 years, a remarkable
new scientific technique
00:25:50
called investigative
genetic genealogy now offers investigators
a glimmer of hope.
00:25:59
That idea came
about in late 2017 and was used in the
Golden State Killer case. When that case was
happening, and we started
00:26:07
to think that this might
work, the NorCal rapist case was right there on the
top of the list as well.
00:26:13
Can the NorCal rapist be
exposed by his own family tree? Will science help put
one of California's
00:26:21
most dangerous sex offenders
behind bars, where he belongs? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:26:29
[MUSIC PLAYING] Sacramento, California, 2018. Detectives investigating
a serial rapist
00:26:43
who is thought to
have committed over 10 sex assaults between 1991 and
2006 in northern California.
00:26:53
The national DNA database,
CODIS, has yielded no matches. Now, investigators turn
to a new forensic science
00:27:02
that caught one
of North America's most notorious serial killers. Forensic investigative
genetic genealogy
00:27:11
is a tool that was really
brainstormed during the Golden State Killer case. And essentially, what it is
is you're taking your DNA
00:27:20
and you're sending it to a
laboratory to develop 700,000 to a million markers on the
DNA chromosome that gives you
00:27:30
much, much more
data points that you can then try, through genealogy,
to link it to a family member.
00:27:38
NANCY GRACE: Finally, a
victory for detectives. Investigative genetic
genealogy breaks
00:27:44
this cold case wide open. The hunt for the
NorCal rapist is on. AVIS BEERY: We had the genetic
DNA done through the district
00:27:56
attorney's office. We had an analyst and an
investigator over there who submitted it, worked the tree.
00:28:03
And they called us up and said,
we have a couple of people that you guys might
want to take a look at.
00:28:09
So we got a meeting together, we
all gathered around the table. And they laid everything
out and they said,
00:28:15
we have a very close
match to a half sister. It could be either of these
two individuals, two males.
00:28:22
I looked at the one
suspect and I thought, he looks really similar
to the composite.
00:28:27
There are some
similarities there. And then, we looked
into his background, his criminal history.
00:28:33
Because now, we had an actual
name, a person we could we could run in the
system and figure out
00:28:37
what his previous
arrest history was. And he did, in fact, have
a previous arrest history
00:28:42
for picking up a prostitute,
and also, from stealing a purse from a prostitute. And I thought, wow, that
really kind of fixed his MO,
00:28:51
doesn't it? You know, he's
stealing something from one of his victims. It's not uncommon
for serial rapists
00:28:58
to act out on
prostitutes, because they usually don't report the crime. And it's a way for them
to have their needs
00:29:06
and their urges met if they
can't find another victim. So I was like, that sounds
really like something
00:29:13
that we need to look at. And so I think we
knew pretty quickly on that that was the person we
wanted to focus our efforts on.
00:29:19
I see a lot of cases, and
I've been a DA for 27 years. I've seen hundreds of
thousands of crimes.
00:29:25
But this was one that was
always at the top of my mind. We need to catch this guy.
00:29:30
And it was because
of the viciousness, the brutality of the rapes. And I just never forget
when I got that call
00:29:38
that we had a DNA hit. KAY LIPELT: My wife and I, we
were driving through Arizona
00:29:46
when we got a call
on the cell phone from the DA's office telling me,
we have a suspect identified.
00:29:55
JEFF REISIG: Unfortunately,
it's a name I'll never forget, Roy Charles Waller. NANCY GRACE: So who exactly
is Roy Charles Waller?
00:30:06
He graduated from high school. He didn't go any
further than that. He didn't have any
college education,
00:30:12
no college credits or classes. He worked for a while
in a gas station when he was out of high
school, and then, he got
00:30:19
married very early, very young. He had a daughter
with his first wife. He had another girlfriend for a
while that he had a child with,
00:30:29
but they never got married. He had actually had multiple
long-term relationships
00:30:34
with other women. One woman he was with
for quite some time. He worked at Jiffy
Lube for a while,
00:30:41
and then, he ended up
getting a job with some sort of petroleum company there in
the Bay Area, like Martinez,
00:30:47
Richmond area. And then, he was
working for Berkley. And he had been
there for 26 years.
00:30:54
NANCY GRACE: Roy Charles
Waller is actually living in the nearby
city of Benicia
00:31:00
in the North Bay region of
the San Francisco Bay Area. He lived in Benicia. Quiet little neighborhood.
00:31:07
And they essentially went and
got an abandoned DNA sample. KRISHNA ABRAMS: They were
able to surreptitiously go
00:31:14
and get some discarded trash. It was a half eaten
pear and a straw. And they were able to collect
DNA off of those discarded
00:31:22
items, and those came
back to an absolute match to the evidentiary profile
from these six crime scenes.
00:31:29
So then, they-- so that
was fantastic, right? So it was a huge
break in the case.
00:31:33
And then, they obviously--
once they arrest Mr. Waller, they would have to get
a DNA sample from him
00:31:39
to make sure to confirm that
it was the right person. The detectives themselves
weren't on the phone to me.
00:31:46
It usually came from
the deputy chief, but they gave updates
like, he's driving to work.
00:31:51
And so they actually
arrested him as he parked in the parking lot at work. Because somebody like
this, you don't know
00:31:57
how they're going to react. You know, this
person probably knows that when the police
catch up to him,
00:32:03
he's going to spend the
rest of his life in prison. So if he's at home and has
guns, will he then have a shoot
00:32:10
out with the police? And so how do we
take him into custody in the safest way possible?
00:32:15
And so they decided, as soon
as he got out of his car when he got to work,
they would run up on him
00:32:22
and take him into custody
before he could get anywhere. After 27 years,
investigators finally
00:32:30
have a prime suspect in
the serial sex attacks going all the way back to 1991. That suspect?
00:32:37
Roy Charles Waller. Now, detectives need
to apprehend him. Next, on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:32:46
[MUSIC PLAYING] September, 2018. Benicia in northern California. After 27 long years,
detectives move in
00:33:05
to arrest Roy Charles
Waller for a long series of brutal sex attacks dating
all the way back to 1991.
00:33:15
During the arrest, officers
make a disturbing discovery. AVIS BEERY: When we arrested
him, he had this big backpack,
00:33:23
and he had zip ties in there,
he had tape, he had sex toys, he had condoms. Just really odd, you
know, that you would carry
00:33:34
that around on your person. He had a flashlight. I mean, for all intents and
purposes, he had a rape kit.
00:33:41
NANCY GRACE: Detectives
interview Roy Charles Waller. AVIS BEERY: We systematically
show him pictures
00:33:47
of every victim in every case,
every house in every case, and in every case, he says,
I don't know those women.
00:33:55
I have never been with them. I've never been in their house. So now, I have
established that, OK, he's
00:34:03
denying ever having been there. Multiple opportunities
for him to say, yeah, I had a date
with her, or, yeah,
00:34:12
she could have been
somebody I met online, or, yeah, I think I remember
having sex with her,
00:34:17
or, yeah, I went into her
house to do some handyman work. I mean, multiple opportunities
for him to say something,
00:34:23
and he just denied, denied. And so, at that point,
that's when I started asking him about his DNA.
00:34:28
Why would your DNA be
in any of these houses? He says, I don't know. It's not mine.
00:34:35
It can't be mine. And then, he got
very uncomfortable. He said, you know, you're
accusing me of something
00:34:40
that I didn't do. I said, no, I'm not
accusing you of anything. I'm just telling you what
the victims have said.
00:34:46
These victims are saying
that you did this. And he's like, well, I just
think, you know, at this point,
00:34:50
I need to have a lawyer. So at that point,
he lawyered up, and I really couldn't ask
him any more questions.
00:34:57
And that's where
the interview ended. There's a metal piece that opens
and closes the door that's up
00:35:08
high, and he went over
and stood up on a chair and tied the hoodie
string around that,
00:35:16
and then tried to
tie it to his neck. And then, when he pulled on
it, it completely came apart.
00:35:23
It wasn't strong
enough to hold him. So that really made us
think, wow, you know,
00:35:30
he's really feeling the heat. He's really feeling
guilty about this. Like, he knows that we have him.
00:35:37
NANCY GRACE: After Roy
Charles Waller fails in his suicide
attempt, investigators
00:35:42
prepare for a lengthy trial. They can now notify
victims their attacker is in police custody.
00:35:51
I was at work, and
Detective Beery called. I went outside, and-- and was pretty
hysterical, you know?
00:36:00
Because you just kind of
wondered if they're ever going to find him, you know? Because a lot of
these people that
00:36:07
do stuff that don't have
a record or anything, they might never find them. Until now, this awesome,
with the DNA and stuff.
00:36:16
NICOLE EARNEST-PAYTE:
I get this call, and it's an unknown
number, and I picked it up,
00:36:20
and this woman
identified herself, calling from the Sonoma County
District Attorney's Office.
00:36:25
And as soon as she said that,
my mind kind of went to, OK, that seems odd. And I sort of went blank
as soon as she said that.
00:36:33
I didn't remember her name. And she said, we have a suspect
in custody in the NorCal rapist
00:36:40
case, and I fell to the floor. And I started saying, thank you. And she said,
there's going to be
00:36:48
a live press conference
in Sacramento, and she started
giving me details. And she said, I'll
email you the details.
00:36:54
And I said, I have to go. I have to call my family. ANNE MARIE SCHUBERT: I think
about these victims, not just
00:37:01
the bravery of surviving
these assaults, the bravery of picking up
their lives and moving forward.
00:37:08
But then, when
they get the phone call that this guy
has been caught, and knowing that they have to
then face him in a courtroom,
00:37:14
that is a level of bravery
that is remarkable. It's something that we
ask of people that they're
00:37:23
willing to do, but imagine what
it's like to relive it all, you know, years and
years after it happened.
00:37:31
When you've
waited that long, it was so critically
important for this, for me to get my day in court.
00:37:39
It felt good to
just look at him and tell him what
I went through. NANCY GRACE: A Sacramento jury
convicts Roy Charles Waller
00:37:49
on 46 counts for the
series of sex attacks that terrorized
northern California. He receives one of
the longest recorded
00:38:00
sentences in US history. AVIS BEERY: So in
the end, he was found guilty by
all of the jurors,
00:38:06
and he was sentenced
to 897 years. I've had some big numbers, but
that's the biggest number I've
00:38:12
ever had in any of my cases. It really couldn't be a large
enough number for what he
00:38:17
did to these women, you know? I mean, it doesn't-- it doesn't at all take
away what happened to them.
00:38:24
Knowing that he's probably
never going to get out of prison is great. NANCY GRACE: The case
is finally cracked
00:38:33
because of investigators
who never gave up, and because of
remarkable advancements
00:38:40
in investigative science. What is a fact, that without
the forensic DNA genealogy,
00:38:46
we would have never solved
this case, period, hard stop. It would have
remained a cold case.
00:38:51
It's a game-changer. And I am hoping it operates
as a deterrent moving forward, because you're
probably not going
00:38:58
to get away with anything.
- You can run. You can hide. You can try to cover your
tracks, like this guy did.
00:39:04
But eventually, dedicated
people will catch up with you. When somebody such as
detective Avis Beery, or people
00:39:11
like Kurt Campbell, or Monica
Zajkowski, or a DNA analyst, they quietly sit either behind
their desk or behind a computer
00:39:20
or behind a lab bench, and they
work on these cases for years. Then, we have to be willing
to stand up and recognize
00:39:30
the dedication and
the persistence by law enforcement in
finding the answer. It means a lot, you know,
that everybody did their job
00:39:43
and worked really
hard for us, you know? Even the girls that would
not speak up, you know?
00:39:52
I just felt like-- that's what makes me
sadder than anything. Like, I just-- I wish to God that, you know,
I could just tell people,
00:40:02
please, you know, talk. You know, tell your story. Don't-- don't hold it in. If someone came into my home
and tied me up and beat me up
00:40:11
with a baseball bat and
left, robbed me and left, not one person would question
why I talked about it openly.
00:40:16
But because the weapon
that was used was rape, we're not supposed
to talk about it.
00:40:22
Talk about it. What makes the case
of the NorCal rapist even more remarkable is that
the perp, Roy Charles Waller,
00:40:33
remained on the
loose for so long. His terrified victims lived
through their horrible ordeal,
00:40:41
afraid he would return and
possibly silence them forever. It took the
incredible science of
00:40:50
investigative genetic
genealogy to put this evil doer away for good. I'm Nancy Grace.
00:40:59
Thank you for joining us here
on "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING] [THEME MUSIC]