SACRAMENTO, Calif. — After hearing emotional, searing statements from some of the women he victimized during his 15-year crime spree as the NorCal Rapist, Roy Charles Waller was sentenced in Sacramento Friday to nearly 900 years in prison — essentially 100 years for each of the women he raped.
Superior Court Judge James Arguelles imposed consecutive terms: 459 years to run consecutive to a 438 years to life sentence.
The judge said Waller would be ineligible for probation. He then added that even if he was he eligible, would not grant it because Waller is “a serious danger to society” and presented “blatantly false testimony” during trial.
Waller, 60, who arrived in court Friday wearing orange jail garb and shackles, listened to five of his victims before Arguelles handed down the sentence. Some called him a “monster” and said they are still haunted by the memory of his attacks, and some expressed sympathy for Waller’s family.
K. Doe, one of two roommates raped in Natomas in 2006, was the first victim to speak, telling the court that the day of Waller’s arrest in 2018 was the first time she had taken a shower without fear.
“All because I was so afraid of Mr. Waller breaking into my home again,” she said, adding, “I don’t know what happened to Mr. Waller during his childhood that made him the monster he is today. But I know he is incapable of feeling any remorse or shame.”
The woman noted that Waller had not apologized to any of his nine victims, and said the fact that he tried to kill himself three times the day of his arrest in September 2018 was evidence of his guilt.
And while Waller has not expressed remorse, she revealed that Waller’s daughter contacted her and apologized for her father.
“She felt shame for what he has done,” K. Doe said.
Waller never looked at her or any of the other victims. As he did throughout his trial, Waller kept his gaze down at the defense table flipping through legal documents, and he declined to address the victims or the court when given the chance.
As the sentences were meted out, Waller showed no emotion, sitting with eyes closed behind thick-rimmed glasses.
Prosecutors Chris Ore and Keith Hill asked Arguelles to hand down the sentence consecutively.
“Today their patience should be rewarded,” Hill said Friday of the women Waller attacked. “We ask you to impose the maximum sentence under the law.”
Afterward, defense attorney Joseph Farina said he planned to appeal, and conceded he faced a losing fight during the monthlong trial.
“Unfortunately, the DNA was just too much, we couldn’t overcome that,” Farina said outside of court, adding that Waller maintains he is not guilty and that he would be appealing the sentence.
Some of the women wept in court as they listened to each other speak, and afterward two of them spoke to reporters and expressed gratitude for the judge’s sentence.
“It felt great, it was just the best feeling ever,” said Theresa Lane, who was attacked in her Vallejo home in February 1992 and tried to escape, eventually stabbing Waller in the forehead with the tip of a knife he had been carrying.
Lane noted that she has lived with the aftermath of the attack for 29 years.
“It’s always going to be there,” she said. “I’ve lived half my life — I’m going to be 60 — living this way, so I think this definitely does have closure...
“Knowing that he is not going to do it to anybody else is the most amazing feeling. I just hope to God that he feels the pain.”
Lane noted that Waller never had the courage to look at any of the women, either in trial or at sentencing.
“At the end, I almost wanted to say, ‘Could you just look at me, damn it,’ because the whole time he just kept looking down, and that shows you he had to have some guilt not to look at any of us.”
Nicole Earnest-Payte, Waller’s first victim from Rohnert Park in 1991, gave her name in court, saying she did not want to be referred to as “N. Doe” because she has no reason to feel any shame.
Earnest-Payte spoke in a strong, firm voice, saying that defense attorney Farina questioned her at trial about why she had been so open with the media following Waller’s arrest.
“I have never been, nor will I ever be, embarrassed by what he did to me,” Earnest-Payte says. “I will never be ashamed.”
“It is your client who should be embarrassed, Mr. Farina,” she said.
Earnest-Payte speculated that Waller must have suffered trauma to turn out the way he did.
“It was unfathomable that he found joy in the sadistic and heinous acts that he perpetrated against each of us,” she said. “We won, and never again will you be free to terrorize and damage another innocent human being.”
In describing the attack 29 years ago, Earnest-Payte said she thought Waller would shoot her when he was done with her.
“I thought about how long it would be after he shot and killed me before someone would call the police and find my body,” she said, adding that she thought about how many flies would be on her body.
Earnest-Payte described the suffering her parents felt after the attack.
“I will not easily forgive the effects on my family,” she said, noting that her mother died last year before she could see Waller convicted.
She also told the court she held no ill will toward Waller’s family.
“What has happened to their life is unforgivable,” she said.
Earnest-Payte said the “loathing and disgust” she felt during the attack would stay with her all her life, but said Waller’s “extreme level of depravity” will never hold her down.
Earnest-Payte told the judge that she believes Waller “will go down in history as one of the worst monsters in California history,” and after court she told reporters she was pleased with the sentence.
“He’s gone, I never have to think about him for one more second of my life, and that is the greatest relief I could ever feel,” she said. “He deserves, as the prosecutors said, every single second, and I hope he lives a very, very long life from here on out.”
Waller was convicted in November of 46 counts of rape and other crimes by a jury that deliberated for only 2½ hours.
Jurors rejected the tale Waller told from the witness stand, where he testified about his sex life, interest in threesomes and bondage but denied raping any of the nine victims.
Instead, he said the items police found in his storage lockers — including handcuffs, zip ties, duct tape, Tasers and a book on how to pick locks — were there simply because he is “a collector of odd things.”
He also had difficulty explaining how his DNA and blood ended up at so many of the crime scenes.
“All I can say is, I was never at these locations and I never did what I’m accused of,” Waller testified. “As far as the DNA thing, I’m not a DNA expert.”
Despite his conviction, Waller continues to maintain that he is not guilty, and has been on suicide watch various times since his arrest, according to a probation report filed with the court.
That report says that when his cell was searched in December 2019, deputies found 60 hypertension pills hidden inside a toilet paper roll, and notes that he was placed on suicide watch in October and November of this year as his trial progressed..
When Waller was interviewed by probation on Dec. 4 at the Sacramento County Main Jail in advance of his sentencing, “he was tearful and denied committing any of the offenses,” the report says.
“I will never admit to any of the crimes and will never apologize to any of the victims,” he said, according to the report.
