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DNA LI NKS SERI AL DNA LI NKS SERI AL RAPI ST TO S. CALI FORNI A KI LLI NGS RAPI ST TO S. CALI FORNI A KI LLI NGS
By Kristi Belcamino Contra Costa Times
April 03, 2001
Bay Area
WALNUT CREEK -- Decades after he
struck fear in thousands of East Bay women, the man known as the East Area Rapist
is also a serial killer believed to have slain at least six Southern California
residents, according to discoveries by criminalists.
This nameless, faceless rapist and
killer is known to authorities only by his DNA. While criminalists have connected
the crimes through DNA, investigators are still trying to match the DNA profile
-- considered better identification than even a fingerprint -- to a person.
Authorities believe the East Area
Rapist attacked as many as 40 women between Sacramento and San Ramon during
a two-year period in the 1970s. After a few similar rapes in the San Jose area,
he reportedly disappeared. It was rumored he had moved to Southern California.
Biological evidence from three of
the rapes was saved over the years. As technology improved, the crime lab began
routinely analyzing its cold cases, looking for ways to solve the crimes based
on new fingerprinting technology and DNA profiling, said Karen Sheldon, director
of the Contra Costa County Crime Lab.
Early last year, when the crime
lab began analyzing evidence from the East Area Rapist cases, someone recalled
that there had been some rape/homicides in Southern California that appeared
similar, Sheldon said. A few phone calls were made and the two crime labs kept
in touch.
In October, the Orange County Sheriff's
Department's cold-case unit linked six unsolved killings to one person through
DNA evidence. Those slayings occurred in Ventura, Laguna Niguel and Irvine between
1980 and 1986. Based on the method of the crime, investigators also believe
the unknown killer is linked to four other slayings in Southern California.
In each case, the killer broke into a house at night and raped the women first.
The DNA profiles proved the East
Area Rapist cases in Contra Costa County were linked to the Southern California
cases.
The rapist garnered his nickname
after a series of rapes in Sacramento's east side in 1976 and 1977. He would
break into a house while people were sleeping, tie up the husband and pile dishes
on the man's back while he raped the woman. He threatened to kill both of them
9/8/13 1:39 AM DNA links serial rapist to S. California killings | Recordnet.com
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if the dishes broke.
He is believed to have raped two
Concord women, a San Ramon woman and a Danville woman between October and December
of 1978. The rapes terrorized the East Bay and a multiagency task force was
formed, devoting 16 full-time investigators to solving the serial rapes.
''We really put a lot into it,''
said Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren Rupf, who was a captain in investigations
at the time. ''There are some crimes that strike to the heart of what scares
all of us more than others. The victims were all asleep in their homes. How
more vulnerable could you be? This guy would strike again, coming back to the
same neighborhoods.''
Although the DNA link to the Southern
California cases is exciting to investigators and criminalists, the statute
of limitations on the Contra Costa County rapes expired long ago -- in the mid
1980s. But information in old case files may help Southern California detectives
find the killer, since the statute of limitations for murder never expires.
Frank Fitzpatrick, director of the
Orange County Crime Lab, said the DNA profile of the rapist/killer was submitted
to the state's DNA database, but no match was found. The database contains DNA
samples from more than 130,000 convicts.
DNA can be plucked from a pinhead
of blood, a strand of hair, a drop of semen or saliva.
State law calls for DNA samples
from everyone convicted of rape, murder, attempted murder, voluntary manslaughter,
domestic violence, kidnapping, child molestation, mayhem or torture.
(End of published text
In the past, DNA profiles could
be narrowed down to fit one person in a million, but advances over the past
year now allow criminalists to narrow a profile down to fit one person in a
quadrillion or quintillion.