SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Roy Charles Waller, dubbed the “NorCal Rapist” during a 15-year-crime spree in California, was sentenced to 897 years in prison during a sentencing hearing on Friday in Sacramento.
Superior Court Judge James Arguelles imposed a 459-year term to run consecutively with a 438 to life term, The Sacramento Bee reported. Waller is ineligible for parole.
Arguelles added that even if Waller, 60, had been eligible for parole, he would not have granted it. The judge called Waller “a serious danger to society” and presented “blatantly false testimony” during his trial, the newspaper reported.
Life in prison for NorCal Rapist Roy Waller; judge imposes sentence totaling 897 years https://t.co/CNcjLSLMod
— The Sacramento Bee (@sacbee_news) December 18, 2020
Waller was convicted in November of raping nine women in six different cities in Northern California between 1991 and 2006, KPIX reported. The jury deliberated for two and a half hours before reaching its verdict, the television station reported. Waller was convicted of 46 charges, including 21 counts of rape and seven counts of kidnapping, The Daily Californian reported.
He showed no emotion as the judge handed down the prison sentence.
Law enforcement has also linked Waller to at least eight other sexual assaults in six Northern California KPIX reported.
Defense attorney Joseph Farina said he planned to appeal the decision, although he conceded he faced a tough fight during the monthlong trial.
“Unfortunately, the DNA was just too much, we couldn’t overcome that,” Farina told The Bee.
Investigators used DNA evidence to link Waller to the victims. The DNA match came 10 days before Waller’s arrest in September 2018, according to KPIX.
“The link was made through genetic genealogy,” Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said. “Through the use of GEDMatch.”
Waller worked for 25 years at the University of California at Berkeley before he was arrested, The Daily Californian reported. At the time of his arrest, Waller was working at the university’s Office of Environment, Health and Safety as a safety specialist, the newspaper reported.
Some of the victims addressed the court and Waller before his sentence was handed down.
“He should experience the barbaric sense of time around him, knowing that this is his fate will set me free for good,” Nicole Earnest-Payte, Waller’s first victim in 1991, told the court.
Nicole Earnest-Payte—one of 9 known #NorCalRapist survivors—talks about the maximum sentence Roy Waller received in court today. Earnest-Payte, delivering a searing impact statement, prior to judge handing down Waller’s fate. Story coming up at 5pm on @kcranews pic.twitter.com/cA7DJvGyGe
— Melanie Wingo | KCRA (@MelWingoKCRA) December 19, 2020
“It felt great, it was just the best feeling ever,” another victim, Theresa Lane, told the court. Lane was attacked in her Vallejo home in February 1992 and tried to escape, eventually stabbing Waller in the forehead with the tip of a knife he had been carrying, The Bee reported.
“It’s always going to be there,” Lane said. “I’ve lived half my life -- I’m going to be 60 -- living this way, so I think this definitely does have closure.”
Theresa Lane speaking to reporters after convicted #NorCalRapist Roy Waller receives maximum sentence—life w/o possibility of parole. @kcranews pic.twitter.com/JET4aViEXZ
— Melanie Wingo | KCRA (@MelWingoKCRA) December 18, 2020
“It was unfathomable that he found joy in the sadistic and heinous acts that he perpetrated against each of us,” Earnest-Payte told the court. “We won, and never again will you be free to terrorize and damage another innocent human being.”
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