NorCal rapist suspect Roy Waller ordered to stand trial

A judge in Sacramento ruled Wednesday that there is enough evidence to have NorCal Rapist suspect Roy Charles Waller be tried for a 15-year series of sexual assaults, ordering him to face trial on 46 felony counts alleging he attacked nine women and committed 21 rapes and other crimes.

The ruling by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Trena Burger-Plavan came on the sixth day of a preliminary hearing for Waller, 60, who has been held in the Sacramento County Main Jail without bail since his arrest in September 2018.

The judge took nearly an hour to reach each charge in the 62-page felony complaint - as well as enhancements for alleged violations such as using a handgun in a crime or kidnap or burglary during commission of the crimes - in a case that could send him to prison for the rest of his life.

“There is sufficient cause to believe that the named defendant, Roy Charles Waller, is guilty thereof,” the judge said after reading each count. “He is ordered held to answer.”

Burger-Plavan issued her order after more than two hours of legal wrangling Wednesday morning over whether Waller should face various kidnap charges and whether there was enough evidence to tie him to attacks on a pair of roommates in Davis in January 1997.

Waller’s lead defense attorney, Joseph Farina, had argued that there is no DNA or other biological evidence placing Waller at the Davis scene, and said that ATM photos of a suspect using the victims’ bank cards later at bank machines in Woodland do not conclusively show Waller was the man using the cards.

Waller was arrested 12 years after the last attack in 2006 through DNA analysis from crime scenes that prosecutors say tie him directly to many of the rape cases involving nine victims.

Deputy District Attorney Chris Ore, who is handling the case along with prosecutor Keith Hill, conceded Wednesday that no such DNA evidence exists for the 1997 Davis case.

But he said the methods used by the attacker - asking for ATM cards and PINs, speaking calmly, binding the victims and using a “fireman’s carry” to transport the victims while holding them over a shoulder - were “extremely similar” to the methods used in almost all the other attacks.

“He kisses the duct tape, he kisses their mouths, he kisses their breasts and nipples,” Ore said, adding that in the Davis and other cases the attacker also asked for time to get away before the victims called police.

Ore noted that the Davis attacks occurred “in the epicenter” of the other attacks, which began in 1991 and were spread among six Northern California counties: Sacramento, Yolo, Butte, Contra Costa, Solano and Sonoma.

He also maintained that the ATM photo evidence, in which the suspect is wearing a clear plastic mask, shows Waller.

“His appearance is clear, he screams through that ATM photo that, ‘I am Roy Waller,’” Ore said.

The judge agreed there was enough evidence to send him to trial on those and all other allegations prosecutors have charged, and ordered Waller to return for a Feb. 13 hearing.

Waller is suspected of beginning his 15-year string of sexual assaults by raping two women in Sonoma County in 1991.

Earlier this month, a retired Rohnert Park public safety officer testified at a preliminary hearing about the first of those incidents, reported by a woman who said she was raped by a man who responded to her newspaper ad seeking a roommate.

“He kept saying, I’m sorry, this is my first time. I’ve done this and I regret this. I can’t believe I’ve done this to you,’?” former Officer Marshall Goldy recounted her telling him. “He kept saying over and over again that he learned his lesson and he would never do this again to anyone.”