As NorCal Rapist Roy Waller faces sentencing, prosecutors ask for more than 900 years

When convicted serial rapist Roy Charles Waller appears for sentencing Friday in Sacramento Superior Court on Friday, he should not expect prosecutors to offer up any kind of break.

Waller opted to gamble on a trial and was convicted last month on 46 counts of rape and other counts by a jury that determined he was the notorious NorCal Rapist who attacked nine women in a series of assaults between 1991 and 2006.

Now, prosecutors Chris Ore and Keith Hill are asking Sacramento Superior Court Judge James Arguelles to hand the 60-year-old convict a sentence that will keep him in prison for the rest of his life.

“It is the people’s position that the defendant be sentenced to the longest possible prison term which may be legally imposed,” the prosecutors wrote in a 19-page sentencing brief filed in court.

As in: 468 years in prison plus another sentence of 438 years to life.

The proposed sentence would be roughly double that imposed on kidnapper and rapist Phillip Garrido, who was sentenced in 2011 to 431 years to life for the 1991 abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard, an 11-year-old fifth grader taken from her Meyers-area neighborhood as she walked to a school bus stop.

But Ore and Hill argue that Waller, who bound his victims, threatened them with handguns and terrorized them for hours at a time, has earned more than 900 years.

“The crimes involved great violence, great bodily harm, threat of great bodily harm, and other acts disclosing a high degree of cruelty, viciousness or callousness,” they wrote. “The victims were forcibly bound, taped, handcuffed and tightly tied.”

Some victims had their clothing sliced off their bodies “to accomplish the sexual assaults,” they wrote, adding that Waller threatened to return and kill his victims or harm their family members if they called police.

He wore a mask and taped their eyes to keep them from being able to identify him, and frequently roamed their homes as they remained helpless, bound to a bed post or otherwise tied up.

“The defendant committed his crimes while armed with a weapon,” they noted. “In virtually every jurisdiction that he committed his crimes he was armed with a gun or a knife.

“He frequently menaced the victims and held the gun to their heads.”

The victims were stalked, prosecutors have said, with Waller keeping spreadsheets of the routines and movements of potential targets.

“The victims were particularly vulnerable,” they wrote. “The defendant was very careful when it came to selecting his victims.

“Frequently, they were young college students or women who were known to be in their own home alone at the time of the crimes.

“He came to them in the dark of night while they were sleeping or otherwise distracted. Multiple women testified to being awakened from sleep by the defendant with a knee in their back and a hand over their mouth.”

Waller’s victims — including one who said she recognized him after getting a glimpse from under the tape over her eyes — testified at trial in emotional, sometimes defiant appearances. As they spoke, Waller typically started down at a legal pad or the defense table as they described what he did to them.

Waller’s defense attorney, Joe Farina, did not file a sentencing brief ahead of Friday’s hearing, where at least five of the victims are expected to speak before he is sentenced — three in court, two by Zoom video.

They likely will echo the argument prosecutors made: that Waller can never walk free again.

“The defendant has engaged in a pattern of conduct which indicates a serious danger to society,” Ore and Hill wrote. “There is nothing more egregious than a serial rapist that has continuously committed forcible sex crimes across multiple jurisdictions for more than 15 years.

“The crimes were violent and ongoing. His pattern suggests that he is a clear danger to society.”

This story was originally published December 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.