Nor Cal Rapist victim identifies Roy Waller in court as man who attacked her in 1997

In a dramatic confrontation Tuesday during the Nor Cal Rapist trial in Sacramento, one of suspect Roy Waller’s alleged victims identified him in court as the man who attacked her 23 years ago, prompting Waller’s defense attorney to accuse her of lying on the stand.

The accusation came during the second day of testimony from the woman, who was a 21-year-old Chico State psychology student who was attacked July 18, 1997, in her apartment by a man who surprised her while she was asleep.

The woman, identified in court as “R. Doe,” had testified Monday that her attacker had tied her up and covered her eyes with duct tape, but that because of the shape of her face she could see under the tape.

Under questioning from Sacramento Deputy District Attorney Chris Ore Monday and Tuesday, she initially was not asked if she recognized Waller sitting at the defense table as the man who attacked her.

But then Waller defense attorney Joe Farina began to pick at parts of her story and her memories of the incident when he asked if she remembered anything about the intruder.

“I see him sitting right next to you,” the woman replied, prompting Farina to interject that she doesn’t know Waller.

“I do know him,” she said. “I saw his face that night.”

“You didn’t see Mr. Waller’s face, you’re just making that up,” Farina said.

“No,” she said as Farina continued.

“You only believe that because we have this case going on,” he said before abruptly declaring, “No further questions.”

But Ore had some more questions for her, asking about why immediately after the attack she had told police it was possible her rapist was a Chico janitor.

“You would learn later that he was cleared by DNA,” Ore said, then projected a photo of the janitor onto screens before the jury and asked why she had initially thought the janitor was her attacker.

“Because he looks extremely similar to Waller,” she said as the photo of the man — who resembles Waller but who had a mustache in the photo — was displayed.

That prompted Farina to try again, asking how she could remember details from more than two decades ago.

“You’ve identified Mr. Waller as your attacker,” he said. “This attack occurred 23 years ago, in 1997.

“Now, in this court, this trial, you’re identifying him 23 years after the incident in question? Is that your testimony? You want to convict Mr. Waller. You don’t care what it takes, which may include lying on the stand.”

The woman, who has given her name in previous media interviews on the case, declined to speak to The Sacramento Bee after testifying and would not give permission for her name to be used.

But her identification of Waller as the man who raped her may give prosecutors additional ammunition to use against Waller, who faces 46 felony counts and is accused of raping nine women in six cities between 1991 and 2006.

Much of the evidence against him is related to DNA samples from crime scenes that prosecutors say is a match with Waller’s and was discovered in 2018 using the same investigative technique that led to the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist.

In the Nor Cal Rapist case, victims have said their attacker typically wore a ski mask or other face covering — including a Halloween mask — and covered their eyes with duct tape or a pillow case, hindering their ability to see the man.

The Chico victim followed testimony from three other women — victims from Rohnert Park, Vallejo and Martinez — and is expected to be followed by testimony from a 1997 Davis rape victim.

Some of the women have described the sheer terror of waking up to find a masked man with a gun who spent hours in their homes alternately raping them and wandering about their residences as they were tied up.

But some have described fighting back violently, including the Vallejo victim who grabbed the attacker’s knife, broke off the tip and used it to stab at his forehead.

The Chico victim gave a similar account, telling the jury that after she was tied up with her hands behind her back and duct tape on her eyes and mouth she worked feverishly to get loose.

“I was licking my mouth to try and loosen up the tape, I was like spitting and using my tongue to try and loosen the tape on my mouth...” she testified. “I was afraid of him the entire time.”

“When someone has a gun and they put it to your head and they tell you they’re going to kill you, you do whatever you can to survive,” she said.

The woman said her attacker came into the bedroom where she was being held and found she had managed to get one arm free.

“He caught me trying to get free,” she said. “I licked the duct tape from my mouth and it kind of started falling off for a while, and then I used my teeth to get the duct tape off my wrist and the rope.

“I was able to get one arm free and I started working on the other arm. I was interrupted. He walked in. I just got scared because I wasn’t all the way free. I just waited to see what he would do because I wasn’t free.

“He got angry and said ‘I’m going to have to tie you up tighter now because you’re trying to get free.’”

The man tied her up tighter and left the room, and when he returned he saw that she had managed to get both arms free and had grabbed a pair of scissors from the nightstand that the attacker had used to cut off her first set of bindings.

“The second time I got free I used the scissors,” she said. “Got both arms free and I said, ‘You’d better leave now.’

“He kind of turned his body like he was going to leave and he charged after me. I was on the bed because my legs weren’t free yet, only my arms. I took the scissors and I stabbed him (in a forearm).

“He said, ‘You’ve really done it now, you’re going to get it.’ And then he had to clean up all the blood. He tied me back up and raped me,” she said as she burst into tears.

This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 11:53 AM with the headline "Nor Cal Rapist victim identifies Roy Waller in court as man who attacked her in 1997."