Where is Roy Charles Waller now?

Roy Charles Waller is an American serial rapist who was responsible for a series of more than 10 rapes and kidnappings between 1991 and 2006 in 6 Northern California counties. He was known by the moniker of the ‘NorCal Rapist.’

Waller had a particular pattern of behaviour when committing his brutal crimes: He would enter the house of the intended victim late at night when they were usually asleep. He would grab the women and bind them before sexually assaulting them and ransacking their homes. On certain occasions, he was known to abduct the victim, take them to an ATM, and steal money from their accounts.

How did they catch the NorCal rapist?

The cases went cold and Waller remained on the loose with law enforcement not knowing the identity of the NorCal rapist. However, DNA evidence from the crime scenes was put on GED match, and he was identified using genetic genealogy. Police made a family tree and zeroed in on Waller as a suspect. Once they identified him, he was arrested in 2018.

He was charged with dozens of rapes. It was a shock when it was revealed Waller was married and a model employee at the University of California Berkeley where he had worked as a safety specialist for 26 years. He was convicted of 46 counts of rape in November 2020. In December, Waller was sentenced to 897 years to life in prison.

The same technique of using genetic genealogy had been used to arrest Joseph DeAngelo, who was known as the Golden State Killer.