Pod Insights The Binge Crimes Hunting the Bogeyman | 2. This Is Not a Movie About this episode When Nicole hears about another attack eerily like hers, she sounds the alarm. Fifty miles away, celebrated cold case detective Paul Holes discovers two more cases no one knew were connected.
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Transcript 5,805 words · 10 speakers
0:00 Speaker 00 Hey Spotify listeners, when you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In-flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.
0:26 Speaker 01 Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high-fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready-to-cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.
0:55 Speaker 02 You can listen to all episodes of Hunting the Boogeyman ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit Subscribe at the top of the page, or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge: Feed your true crime obsession.
1:24 Speaker 02 A close-up shot of Nicole's big brown eyes, mascara, a brown perm. She's focused, breathing deeply through her nose. Her eyes dart left and right. She comes to a stoplight in her red Honda CRX, puts it in first, waits. It turns green, and she goes. She's a fast driver. She turns into a lot, parks. We zoom out. She's at the Roanoke Park Police and Fire Department. It's the summer of 1991. They don't have a ton of crime in Roanoke Park, but it's not Mayberry. A few murders, a few burglaries, but there aren't readily available statistics on rape. Nicole takes a deep breath and goes inside. The clerk shows her into a room.
2:10 Speaker 02 "I'm not sure, but I think this meeting is being recorded." Two detectives are there, a man and a woman, in uniform. They're cordial with Nicole, but based on what she's told me, they're not exuding a high degree of empathy for the 21-year-old rape victim sitting anxiously in front of them.
2:29 Speaker 02 This meeting, it changed Nicole's life. One of the detectives is now dead. Nicole said he was the note taker. The other detective, the one who did the talking, hasn't returned my calls. I'm going to refer to her as Detective Diane. That's not her real name.
2:48 Speaker 02 When Detective Diane said Nicole's story sounded like a scene from a movie, Nicole was baffled, shocked, and confused. But that was just the start. Diane had done some digging on Nicole's friend Mark, the guy who installed the motion sensor light in her patio.
3:07 Speaker 03 She said, "We pulled Mark's record. He's been arrested for drunken public before. And it doesn't seem like he likes police officers much."
3:14 Speaker 02 At first, Nicole thought, you know, the idea of bringing up Mark as a suspect in this case was kind of absurd. Mark was 6'4" and the attacker was 5'10". Plus, Nicole knew the sound of Mark's voice. He wasn't the guy who broke into her house. But then Nicole realized, no, they were bringing Mark up for a different reason.
3:38 Speaker 03 Because, you know, the characters that I'm hanging out with. That was what she was implying.
3:44 Speaker 03 That I had gone to a bar and sought out casual, rough sex and that something went wrong after I brought them home. As I'm describing the event, she's scoffing. She's getting agitated. She's shifting in her seat. And then, at one point, she was like, "Why didn't you just jump out the window?"
4:11 Speaker 02 When Nicole told me that, I thought, huh, okay. Now that sounds like something from a movie. Nicole said Detective Diane also questioned her behavior, insinuating that she was pretending to be a victim. And her performance just wasn't believable.
4:27 Speaker 03 She said, "You know, you're not acting right. Victims of rape don't act like this."
4:33 Speaker 03 I think it was my confidence, the fact that I was calm, the fact that I was clear, the fact that I thought he was a police officer. None of it made any sense to them. I think that their vision of a rape victim, I think a lot of people's vision of what a rape victim is supposed to look like right after something like this happens is something that they see in a movie. Like, a young woman who is in a hospital gown up against a wall, you know, crying with her mascara running down her face, her hair disheveled, which may very well be some people's reaction. But I think a lot of people's image is that it's only that. And that's not at all true.
5:19 Speaker 03 I think she thought that I was not credible because I had casual sexual relationships as a single woman, and that I'm okay with that.
5:31 Speaker 02 So do you think she was insinuating there was no rape?
5:35 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
5:36 Speaker 02 Or that this person didn't do the things you're saying?
5:39 Speaker 03 Oh, that's a good question. I don't think she believed the thing happened at all.
5:47 Speaker 02 From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, you're listening to Hunting the Bogeyman. I'm Peter McDonnell, episode two. This is not a movie.
6:05 Speaker 02 Everything that you're supposed to do as a victim of rape to try and solve the crime, Nicole did it. And she told them everything. But they still didn't believe her. Earlier, I said I didn't know if the meeting was recorded, but I think it was because I tried to get a copy of it.
6:21 Speaker 03 I requested it many, many years ago, and they told me that the recordings have disappeared.
6:27 Speaker 02 Huh. But somehow, the transcripts of the previous interview survived.
6:33 Speaker 03 Correct.
6:39 Speaker 02 The previous interview I referred to was the one Nicole gave the night of the rape, when her mom showed up with the police. I already have a 177-page police report about Nicole's case, but her interview with Detective Diane isn't in it. It's missing. When I formally requested the second interview, I got an email from the Ronald Park Department of Public Safety that my public records request was denied. They said the second interview was exempt from disclosure. Nicole lived at her mom's house for weeks after the attack, but she still had a mortgage to pay, a Honda that needed an oil change, and groceries. The rapist had stolen all her cash and liquidated her checking account, so she took no time
7:24 Speaker 02 off. On Tuesday, 48 hours after being attacked, Nicole went to work. And everywhere she went, she saw men who looked like the rapist: at stores, stoplights, and in the salon where she worked. Nicole rented out her townhome and moved into a house with some friends, but the pain and anger remained. It's common for rape survivors to feel scared to talk about it, or somehow blame themselves in the aftermath. But Nicole never felt any shame about the rape, which may be another reason the police doubted her. Nicole wasn't afraid to talk about it. He was the criminal. He was the one hiding in shame.
8:05 Speaker 02 Was there a moment, was there a time when you started to feel like you were not going to let this crime define you, hold you back, you also weren't going to suppress it?
8:17 Speaker 03 Oh, the next morning.
8:18 Speaker 02 The next morning.
8:19 Speaker 03 Oh, immediately. It was a massive, life-changing thing. It did change me forever, and it was going to be a big part of my life, but it wasn't going to define me.
8:32 Speaker 03 I told people I worked with, my friends, people all knew it happened. And to me, it was just normal to share it. People had never heard of something like this happening, especially not in a sleepy little suburban town.
8:44 Speaker 02 Nicole's mission was to help find him however she could. She knew he was out there, and if he wasn't caught, he'd do it again. For the rest of 1991, Nicole's life moved fast. By the end of the summer, she was dating a man who was 10 years older.
9:00 Speaker 03 And we were engaged by October.
9:03 Speaker 02 Wow, fast, okay.
9:04 Speaker 03 Very fast. Enough to where my father was like, "What are you doing?" Everybody was like, "What are you doing? I know what I'm doing. Don't tell me what to do. I'm great."
9:15 Speaker 02 Nicole wanted to feel great. She wanted her life to be normal again, but it wasn't. She thought about it every day. About five months later, she picked up the local newspaper, The Press Democrat, and saw a shocking headline on the front page. Stalker rapes Sonoma woman. At first, Nicole thought it might be about her, but it wasn't. It was about a recently divorced woman in the town of Sonoma, just 20 miles from Ronard Park, who was raped in her home by a man in a mask. The attack was so similar that Nicole realized she was right. The man who attacked her was a serial rapist, and Nicole wasn't going to be quiet about it.
10:05 Speaker 00 Hey, Spotify listeners. When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.
10:30 Speaker 01 Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high-fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready-to-cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.
10:59 Speaker 02 The rapist had spied on the woman in Sonoma for weeks.
11:04 Speaker 02 She'd been noticing that the bulb on the motion sensor light in her backyard was coming unscrewed, and it didn't come on the night he appeared at her house at 11:00 PM. He bound her wrists, covered her mouth and eyes with duct tape, and apologized for raping her. Then he warned her not to call the police or he'd be back. In a nearby room, the woman's three-year-old daughter was sleeping. When he finally left, she did call the police. She told them he was a white man in his mid-20s, about 5'9", with a medium build.
11:37 Speaker 03 And I'm reading it going, "This is the same guy. It's gotta be the same person."
11:45 Speaker 02 Nicole was connecting the dots even before the police were.
11:50 Speaker 03 So I called the Press Democrat and said, "This happened to me in Ronard Park." And they were like, "Excuse me? We didn't know this happened to you in Ronard Park." So they interviewed me for it, and I said, "This is a very similar MO. I hope we don't have some serial rapist on our hands here."
12:05 Speaker 02 The reporter, Chris Smith, called the Ronard Park Police Department and asked about Nicole's case. He then wrote a front-page story that the two rapes might be linked.
12:16 Speaker 02 Do you have a copy of that?
12:17 Speaker 03 I do.
12:20 Speaker 03 "January 8, 1992, Sonoma rapes, RP attack linked? As Sonoma police hope for a break in the rapist robbery case, a Ronard Park woman who believes the same masked man attacked her is urging that women everywhere in the county be especially cautious. I note a lot of similarities," Ronard Park Public Safety Lieutenant Bob Williams said, "but I also noticed some major dissimilarities." Williams said the case is still open, though his department has some questions about the alleged victim's credibility. There are some parts of her story that were hard to believe."
12:54 Speaker 02 Wow. The police department Nicole had turned to for help publicly dragged her credibility through the mud. Unbelievable. I asked Nicole how she felt.
13:05 Speaker 03 I was very, very angry.
13:12 Speaker 02 In early 1992, Nicole moved back to her townhome in Ronard Park. Her fiance, who soon became her husband, went too. Nicole's only condition for moving back in was that she had to be the one who went to bed first. He could never leave her downstairs alone at night. But one night, he did. Nicole woke up in the dark, on the couch, and panicked. It was exactly like that Saturday night when she fell asleep on the couch in her robe with the TV on. Her heart was racing, and she staggered to the bottom of the stairwell.
13:48 Speaker 03 I looked up the stairs, and the walls in the stairwell started to move. And I started to hallucinate. And I could not put a foot on the stairs. And I started yelling his name. "I need you to come get me. I need you to come get me."
14:01 Speaker 02 Nicole was crying, desperate for help. She shouted his name again, and again, and again, until finally, he heard her and rushed down.
14:13 Speaker 03 And I said, "We have to go. I can't live here."
14:19 Speaker 02 Nicole and her husband moved 10 miles south to a new house in Petaluma. They were busy unpacking boxes when the one-year anniversary of the attack came and went. Even though Nicole was disbelieved by the two detectives in her interview, and her credibility was questioned in the newspaper, the Ronard Park PD did pursue a number of suspects in her case, including her ex-neighbour, a blond-haired guy in his 20s. They took his fingerprints and used forensic serology to compare markers in his saliva and blood with the offender's markers. But they decided it wasn't him. And eventually, the case went cold. But a few days after Nicole moved into the new house, she found another clue, a pretty big one.
15:04 Speaker 02 Remember when Nicole said she was wearing a green robe the night of the attack? Here's why that's important. In the summer of 1992, she was home alone, unpacking, when the phone rang.
15:16 Speaker 03 You know, I say hello. And I just hear this very flat voice. And the person says, "Oh, I see you've moved." And I said, "Who is this?" And they said, "Do you still have your little green robe?" I screamed into the phone, "Fuck you!"
15:40 Speaker 02 Nicole called 911. Within a week, the Petaluma Police Department tracked down the caller, a local white guy in his mid-20s, of average height and a medium build. He'd once worked as a military police officer. When Nicole first told me about this guy, I thought, "That's gotta be him." I told Nicole I thought we should refer to this guy with a pseudonym. She agreed. And the robe guy's real name starts with a C. And she immediately began brainstorming names.
16:11 Speaker 03 We'll call him, uh, we'll call him, uh... Clive.
16:16 Speaker 02 Clive?
16:17 Speaker 03 No. Claude?
16:19 Speaker 02 No. Claude? No, no, no.
16:24 Speaker 03 Cleo.
16:28 Speaker 03 Carl.
16:28 Speaker 02 Carl. Let's go with Carl.
16:29 Speaker 03 Carl.
16:30 Speaker 02 Carl. I'm just gonna jot this down?
16:31 Speaker 03 Carl.
16:32 Speaker 02 Carl. All right, Carl.
16:38 Speaker 02 Even though Carl G. knew something about the attack that had never been made public, the robe, he didn't seem to know about the crime. And there were no solid clues connecting him to it. Even though it seemed like he should be a suspect, for reasons I'll explain later, he wasn't arrested for the rape. The fact that he knew about the robe, though, was a really disturbing mystery. How could he possibly know about it? I called all the numbers I could find for Carl G.
17:05 Speaker 04 Welcome to Verizon Wireless. The number you dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.
17:10 Speaker 02 So then I dug around for some emails. And I sent them. Maybe eventually, if I have the right address, he'll reply. A few years after Carl G.'s phone call, Nicole and her husband divorced. Then she met Carlos Pate, a down-to-earth guy who was kind, athletic, and funny. Nicole left her career as a hairdresser and became an executive recruiter, working with several Fortune 500 companies. She and Carlos got married and started a family. But as Nicole moved on with her life, the rapist remained at large. He continued stalking women, breaking into their homes, terrorizing them, and escaping into the night. No one could find him.
17:54 Speaker 02 No one had even connected any of the cases. If the rapist thought that he'd avoid detection by attacking in different jurisdictions, well, in a way, he was right. But he made a mistake when he attacked in Contra Costa County. Because that's where Paul Holes worked. The detective who made a name for himself hunting serial predators like the Golden State Killer.
18:19 Speaker 02 Paul's a private guy who got thrust into the spotlight when he helped solve that case. It didn't hurt that he has piercing blue eyes and a smoldering stare. But in 1991, when the rapist broke into Nicole's townhome in Ronard Park, Paul was just at the start of his legendary career. He was 22, a fresh-faced graduate of UC Davis, toiling away in obscurity in the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office Crime Lab. He was just a rookie scientist, so they gave him all the boring, mundane tests and had him do them over and over and over again.
18:55 Speaker 05 I basically became bored out of my skull.
19:00 Speaker 05 So the lab had a different unit called the criminalistics unit, and it was staffed by Deputy Sheriff Crimulus. And that's where I really wanted that position.
19:13 Speaker 02 The criminalists were sworn officers, scientists who'd gone to the police academy and could, in Paul's estimation, do much more exciting work. They carried a gun, responded to crime scenes, gathered forensic evidence in the field, and brought it back to the lab to run tests to solve crimes. Paul attended the police academy and became a criminalist. Then, on Halloween night, 1996, the rapist attacked in Paul's jurisdiction.
19:41 Speaker 05 Trick-or-treaters had waned. She fell asleep on her sofa, and here's the doorbell ring, and she thinks it's another trick-or-treater, just opens up the door.
19:57 Speaker 02 The local PD responded, but the forensic evidence was sent to Paul at the Contra Costa County Crime Lab. I've often wondered what might have happened if it hadn't. Because when Paul got involved, it wasn't long before he connected the Halloween night attack with other cases in Northern California. And for the very first time, the rapist's alarming pattern became clear.
20:25 Speaker 06 Observe: The North American Dad. 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang, that's a good offer." The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him "boss." He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.
20:56 Speaker 00 Hey Spotify listeners! When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In-flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi. Sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at AA.com.
21:23 Speaker 02 The rape on Halloween night, 1996, occurred in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Martinez, California. When the woman opened the door, expecting to see a kid in a costume, instead, she saw a man in a skeleton mask, pointing a gun at her. He pushed his way in and shut the door.
21:43 Speaker 05 He orders her down onto the floor, and he handcuffs her. He binds her ankles with rope, and then he duct tapes her eyes and mouth. Ultimately, he gets her up onto her bed and is now demanding her ATM PIN, as well as kind of interrogating her about other financial accounts. When she wouldn't answer, he would start cutting her clothes off. And he continued this, this game, if you will, until she's completely naked.
22:15 Speaker 05 And so, he repeatedly sexually assaults her over the course of hours. And each time, he uses a condom. And she hears him, after the sexual assault, go into her bathroom and flush.
22:32 Speaker 05 He's flushing away the evidence. And this is, this is really right after the O.J. Simpson case.
22:42 Speaker 02 What Paul means is that in 1995, when OJ Simpson went on trial for murder in Los Angeles, DNA was on trial too. It was a relatively new forensic tool for solving violent crimes, and OJ's DNA was found at the scene. For the police, that was like a game-winning touchdown. But the LAPD fumbled it, and OJ was found not guilty. Ironically, more people watched that trial than watched the Super Bowl that year. And many of them came away with the idea, not just that justice was slippery, but that DNA did not lie. Ever since then, investigators have noticed that criminals try very hard not to leave their DNA behind at crime scenes, including the man who would later become known as the NorCal Rapist.
23:31 Speaker 05 And this rapist is paying attention, going, "Holy shit, they've got DNA now." And so now he's taking steps, in this case, to try to avoid leaving the DNA evidence.
23:42 Speaker 02 As Paul told me this, we'd been driving for the last few hours, Paul riding shotgun, stopping at every crime scene in the NorCal series. Paul barely had to look at his notes. Whenever I asked him about a case, his brain filled up with details like a bag of microwave popcorn. We'd made it to Martinez and drove up a hill to the sheriff's office crime lab where he used to work. We then went down the other side and turned into a neighborhood.
24:10 Speaker 05 Right here, I believe it's this corner house.
24:13 Speaker 02 No kidding. Wow.
24:17 Speaker 02 The victim's house was less than a mile from the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office. The victim no longer lived there, but we wanted to see how the attacker might have surveilled her in secret. There were two spots up the street where he might have parked unnoticed.
24:32 Speaker 05 He could sit there and just watch and see the victim coming and going and watching at what times lights are going out. You know, and it's possible and likely that he has got multiple victims that he is surveilling around the same timeframe to see which ones are going to be most conducive to being attacked.
24:54 Speaker 02 The Martinez attack was the first time you ever came across the NorCal Rapist?
24:59 Speaker 05 That's correct. This was very early on in my career, but I had just come off the heels of, you know, studying serial predators.
25:10 Speaker 02 In 1996, Paul had been reading his way through all the books he could find about serial predators.
25:17 Speaker 05 And right around that same timeframe, my parents, for my 25th birthday, sent me a book that was called Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives. Imagine sending your son a book on sexual homicide, right?
25:30 Speaker 02 Did they get the birthday gift right that year?
25:32 Speaker 05 So, it turns out, yes.
25:38 Speaker 02 If Paul's parents were worried about their son, by now, they know it all worked out. Paul's education as a serial predator hunter took him deep into the arcane library of homicide and sexual assault cases, behavioral psychology, and forensics. Even though Paul worked in the lab, on weekends, at night, and on his lunch break, he began investigating cold cases. No one assigned them to him. They didn't even realize he was doing it, at least at first. But case by case, Paul was becoming one of America's best investigators. And his obsession with cold cases would pay off with a groundbreaking discovery that would help crack the NorCal rapist case. But that comes later in our story.
26:23 Speaker 02 We're still in 1996.
26:25 Speaker 05 The lab was just starting to get this really early form of DNA testing up and running. And so, I ended up starting to think about the serial crimes and thinking, you know, this DNA technology is going to be pretty significant for these types of cases because these predators are sexually motivated, they're fantasy motivated, they're going up with very intimate contact with their victims.
26:54 Speaker 02 After the sexual assault on Halloween, an evidence technician from the Martinez Police Department showed up at the county forensic lab with bags of evidence. The county lab, where Paul worked, did most of the forensic testing for the region. And as a result, Paul had grappled with the physical evidence in a lot of fascinating cases. And he knew how to get creative solving them.
27:19 Speaker 05 Her and I got talking at the front counter as she's submitting it, and she's telling me the circumstances of that case. And I'm going, there's a definite chance that there's going to be other cases associated with this particular offender based on what he was doing.
27:33 Speaker 02 And why do you say that?
27:35 Speaker 05 With this attack in Martinez, he's living out a fantasy with this victim that he is just completely terrorized and rendered helpless. This is something that this guy dwells upon. It's innate to his sexual being. You know, when you have sexually motivated crimes, well, these are repeat offenders, particularly when there's that fantasy element to it.
28:00 Speaker 02 Paul took the bags of evidence and got to work. His goal: to find the offender's DNA.
28:07 Speaker 05 Everybody thinks about the sexual assault kit or the rape kits, right? And those are relatively easy and quick to process. However, the guy used a condom.
28:17 Speaker 02 The victim's sexual assault kit didn't include anyone else's DNA. So you have to look for other options?
28:24 Speaker 05 So, and this is where, you know, the evidence technician did a great job. So I have, you know, the pillowcases. I have all the sheets off the bed, the comforter off the bed. This is where he is attacking her.
28:36 Speaker 02 But finding the offender's DNA on the comforter wasn't going to be easy. After his visual inspection, they turned up nothing. Paul put the comforter under an alternative light source.
28:47 Speaker 05 I ended up finding, I think it was 17 different stains on this comforter. There was one obvious semen stain that I found, but that turned out to be the victim's prior boyfriend.
28:59 Speaker 02 The other stains didn't have the offender's DNA either. Paul told me that most labs back then would have stopped right there and declared that there was no DNA evidence in this case. But Paul got creative.
29:15 Speaker 05 I ended up doing a technique that is rarely done today because it is so rigorous to do. It's this acid phosphatase mapping. And this is where, like the comforter, I end up having to create a grid. And each square of the grid, what I do is I press wet filter paper against it for a period of time. And where there is potential semen stain, some of that transfers to this filter paper. I then hang that up in the hood, spray it, and end up doing the entire surface of the comforter. This takes a very long time. And where you get a purple color change suggests that that's where this enzyme, this
29:57 Speaker 05 acid phosphatase, is located at. Well, acid phosphatase occurs in high concentrations in semen in most people.
30:07 Speaker 02 Using this process, Paul discovered a tiny semen stain that the alternate light source didn't catch. It was just enough to make a DNA profile. And this profile, it wasn't the ex-boyfriends. It was the rapists.
30:26 Speaker 02 So where do you go from there?
30:30 Speaker 05 Well, at this point, you know, I had already started to build a database of notorious offenders in my county. And of course, that's a very quick elimination because I only had like, like 30.
30:45 Speaker 02 Yep. Paul was building his own database of violent offenders from his county. I wasn't surprised. While we were out in the Bay Area, he showed me a folder on his phone with hundreds of cold cases he knew by heart. He always had them with him. A few days after Paul isolated the rapist DNA in the attack on Halloween, an analyst at the California DOJ Crime Analysis Unit flagged it as being similar to another case in a nearby county.
31:14 Speaker 05 And they're going, oh, based off of MO, this case in Martinez, boy, that really looks like possibly the same offender from a case out of Vallejo PD four years earlier.
31:28 Speaker 02 Oh, wow.
31:35 Speaker 02 In that attack, the rapist entered a woman's garage in the middle of the night, but found that the door from the garage into the house was locked. He used the client of a hammer to chisel a hole through the drywall next to the doorknob. Then he reached through the wall and unlocked it. He quietly went upstairs, but found that the woman's bedroom door was locked, too. In the morning, the woman woke up to go to work. She unlocked her bedroom door, walked down the hallway, and opened the door to her bathroom. The man was there waiting. He lunged at her. She retreated and fought back, but he was stronger. Just like in the attack on Halloween, the man bound her and raped her.
32:19 Speaker 02 After a few years of investigation, the attack became a cold case. And then Paul Holes called.
32:30 Speaker 05 So that detective and I end up talking over the front counter. He had no DNA analysis, but they had found semen. I was like, well, I'll run it. You know, let's see if it matches the Martinez case. So he submits the sample, and lo and behold, it matches. So it's like, holy smokes.
32:54 Speaker 02 A few months later, the rapist struck again, two hours north in the city of Chico.
33:05 Speaker 05 So now I call up Chico, and I talk to that detective. And he said, yes, we have DNA evidence because the victim fought with the offender, grabbed scissors, and stabbed him in the arm. The offender is walking away from that scene, knowing, oh, jeez, you know, I've left blood. This is two years post OJ Simpson. And lo and behold, the Chico case had the same DNA profile.
33:33 Speaker 02 The serial rapist had been attacking with impunity for nearly 10 years. When Ronard Park PD inactivated Nicole's case and Carl G. was cleared, all Nicole heard about the investigation into her rape was crickets.
33:51 Speaker 02 What were you thinking had happened?
33:53 Speaker 03 There was just nothing, just nothing. I just thought, okay, well, maybe at some point he'll attack somebody else and I'll catch him. This has to have happened somewhere else. I cannot be the only one he did this to.
34:06 Speaker 02 Years went by. And then in 2006, 15 years after she was attacked, Nicole came home from work one day and found a business card taped to her door.
34:20 Speaker 03 From the Petaluma Police Department with a little note on the back that said, "The Sacramento Police Department wants to talk with you. Please call this number." And I thought, well, that's strange.
34:31 Speaker 03 I went upstairs to my office and called the number and I got the voicemail. You've reached a voicemail, Detective Paul Schindler of the Sacramento Police Department Sex Crimes Unit. So he called me right back, like within two minutes. He said, "Well, I just wanted to call and just give you the heads up to let you know about the press conference tomorrow." And, and I said, "Well, wait, wait, press conference about what?"
34:56 Speaker 03 And he said, "The press conference about the case. We want to get a lot more attention to it." And I said, "What, what are you talking about?" And he sort of paused and you could tell he was a little bit like thrown. And he said, "The man that attacked you in 1991 is a serial rapist connected by DNA. And there are, we believe, 10 victims, including you, that I was the first in the series."
35:24 Speaker 03 And he said, "Has Robert Park not called you all these years? They haven't told you? They haven't re-interviewed you? They didn't tell you about this press conference?" And I said, "No, they haven't spoken to me in 15 years at all."
35:37 Speaker 02 That phone call changed Nicole's life.
35:40 Speaker 03 Now people believe me. It made me angry and validated. Now I'm a real case. I'm a real person. I'm real now. You can't deny this now.
35:52 Speaker 02 The reason the Sacramento Police Department was holding a press conference was that there had been another attack. There were two victims, and this time, one of the victims saw the NorCal rapist's face, and a security camera had recorded video of his car. Soon, everyone who owned a Toyota 4Runner of a certain make and model across all the counties where the attacks had occurred would get a knock on their door. And one of those doors would be his. In the next episode of Hunting the Bogeyman, Nicole returns to the Ronard Park Police Station.
36:33 Speaker 03 Maybe you should have believed me.
36:35 Speaker 02 We find out how Nicole's case was finally linked to the series. This sounds like the same guy. And the hunt for the NorCal rapist goes into overdrive.
36:45 Speaker 07 Well, this is some good new evidence that they released today, and hopefully, this is finally, after 15 years, going to lead them to this attacker.
36:51 Speaker 03 That's what they're hoping.
36:57 Speaker 08 What's it take to be a mentor with big brothers, big sisters? It takes 30 minutes and a cup of coffee, a video game, best two out of three. It takes sharing thumbs up emojis, clapping emojis, and loaded nachos at halftime. That's how you make an impact on a young kid's life. So go on, share a few hours a month, because mentorship may sound huge, but the truth is, it takes little to be big. To learn more, volunteer or donate, go to bbignow.org.
37:31 Speaker 02 Hunting the Bogeyman is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence. It's hosted and reported by me, Peter McDonald. From Perfect Cadence, I'm the executive producer. From Sony Music Entertainment, the executive producers are Catherine St. Louis and Jonathan Hirsch. The series was sound designed and mixed by Matt Gergel. We used music from Audio Network. The show's production manager was Sammy Allison. Our lawyer is Allison Sherry. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rassik, and Jamie Myers. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a review. It's the best way to support us. Thanks for listening.
38:20 Speaker 09 It's getting chilly outside. But you know what that means?
38:26 Speaker 09 It's time to cozy up with Panera Bread. Let's get toasty, cheesy. Oh, hello broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl. How about melty? Okay, Chipotle Chicken Avo Melt. It's dipping bread in soupy goodness season. Oh yeah, we're so back. It's Panera season. Order now.
Previous Hunting the Bogeyman | 1. The Nightmare Next Hunting the Bogeyman | 3. The Rollercoaster Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated