NorCal Rapist jury reaches verdict after day of deliberations; hearing set for Wednesday morning

After only one day of deliberations, a jury has reached a verdict in the NorCal Rapist case, and Sacramento Superior Court Judge Judge James Arguelles is scheduled to reveal it Wednesday in a 9 a.m. hearing.

The jury began deliberations mid-morning Tuesday following a closing argument from prosecutor Keith Hill, and shortly after 4 p.m. court officials announced jurors had come to a decision.

Jurors spent nearly a month listening to evidence about whether suspect Roy Charles Waller is responsible for raping nine women over a 15-year period.

“It’s all about the DNA,” Hill told the jurors Tuesday morning. “I stood before you 29 days ago and told you then, it’s all about the DNA.

“That hasn’t changed.”

Prosecutors say sperm or blood left at all but one of the crime scenes between 1991 and 2006 came from Waller, and that neither Waller nor his defense attorney, Joseph Farina, did anything during trial to dispute that.

Hill noted that Waller, during his testimony last week, denied being the rapist but had no explanation for how his DNA ended up at the crime scenes.

“He said, ‘Ask my DNA expert, I don’t know, I didn’t do it, ask my DNA expert,’” Hill said. “He denied being there.

“He denied being the rapist and he told us to check with his DNA expert.”

Hill also argued that Farina spent most of his closing argument Monday avoiding the subject of DNA, devoting only about seven minutes to the topic.

“Seven minutes,” Hill said. “You avoid what you don’t want to have to face.

“You avoid what you don’t have answers for. He did not dispute, he did not deny that those DNA samples matched Mr. Waller. Did not deny it.

“For 33 years, he has represented rapists and child molesters. We don’t hold that against him. That’s just his job.”

Farina has argued that only one of the victims has identified Waller in court by sight, and has said she is lying. He also has argued that some of the DNA has degraded over time and may not have been stored properly.

Waller, 60, has been in custody since his September 2018 arrest and faces spending the rest of his life in prison if convicted on the 46 felony counts he faces.

This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 10:14 AM with the headline "NorCal Rapist jury reaches verdict after day of deliberations; hearing set for Wednesday morning."