'NorCal Rapist' Convicted Of Raping 9 Women, Who He Stalked And Rated On Looks Before Attacks

A serial rapist who terrorized Northern California over a 15-year period is facing life in prison after being found guilty of raping nine women.

Roy Charles Waller, 60, was convicted on all 46 charges brought against him after a jury found him guilty on Wednesday, local outlet KCRA reports. Known as the “NorCal Rapist,” Waller terrorized Northern California between 1991 and 2006 with a slew of sexual assaults and home invasions. 

The jury convicted him of committing nine rapes. Among the 46 charges, he was found guilty of multiple counts of forcible rape, sodomy, and kidnapping. As the verdicts were read, women in the courtroom began crying. Waller responded by looking down at the table before him, according to KCFA. He faces life in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 18.

Waller was arrested in 2018 after DNA from a soda straw and a half-eaten pear taken from his garbage connected him to the 15-year rape spree. The former University of California, Berkeley employee often broke into homes and tied up women before sexually assaulting them. He would tape their eyes shut while cuddling them between assaults, and would steal jewelry and ATM cards. 

In other attacks, Waller would kidnap women and force them to withdraw money for him at an ATM. He often wore a ski mask during such attacks as he traveled through Sacramento, Yolo, Butte, Contra Costa, Sonoma, and Solano counties.

Waller’s alleged modus operandi mirrors that of infamous “Golden State Killer” Joseph DeAngelo, who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole earlier this year. In addition to committing 13 murders, DeAngelo raped at least 50 women and girls in northern California during the 1970s and '80s. 

Waller and DeAngelo’s attack areas overlap, as many of DeAngelo's victims were attacked in Sacramento and Contra Costa County. While often wearing a ski mask, DeAngelo would break into their homes and tie up couples, psychologically torturing the men and children while raping the women for hours. His spree earned him the monikers “East Area Rapist,” “Original Night Stalker,” “Visalia Ransacker,” and “Golden State Killer.” Like Waller, he was also caught via DNA and genealogy evidence. Both men are also believed to have halted their sprees of attacks for years.

During Waller’s trial, his defense attorney Joseph Farina accused authorities of overreach by taking items from his client’s garbage, the Associated Press reports. Farina also questioned whether or not the DNA found at the crime scenes had been preserved properly.

Prosecutors described Waller as an organized rapist who stalked his potential victims by collecting information about them and storing it in computer databases which were apparently still in his possession when he was arrested. Prosecutors told the jury that Waller would seek out women of Asian descent, then grade them on their appearance before planning on how to break into their homes to attack them.

"Twenty-nine years of waiting and waiting. Amazing," Nicole Earnest Payte, a survivor who was attacked in 1991, told KRCA after Waller was convicted. She called Wednesday a "great day."