DNA 'hit' leads to conviction in 2007 Rohnert Park sexual assault

A Sebastopol man has been convicted through DNA evidence of sexually assaulting a 22-year-old Sonoma State University student outside a gas station in 2007.

Deverick Lockett, 27, was on trial in Sacramento for a similar assault and kidnapping that occurred three days later when a “cold hit” in the national DNA database of criminal offenders pegged him as the assailant in the Rohnert Park case.

After brief deliberations, a Sacramento County convicted him of both crimes and he now faces a sentence of life in prison plus 94 years. His sentencing is Dec. 8.

Lockett was accused of sexually assaulting the student, who has since moved back to her hometown in Southern California, after she left a party and stopped at the East Cotati Avenue gas station on Sept. 23, 2007.

She was struck in the face and bloodied, and after regaining consciousness, she approached a clerk inside the market for help, police said. She was unable to describe her assailant, they said.

In the attack in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, the 46-year-old victim was beaten and dragged from an apartment parking lot into a laundry room, where an off-duty firefighter confronted the attacker.

After the DNA match was made, investigators from Sonoma and Sacramento counties collaborated on the case and agreed to have both cases prosecuted in Sacramento County so that the victims don't have to testify more than once, police said.