Hunting the Bogeyman | 2. This Is Not a Movie

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Binge Crimes: Hunting The Bogeyman

Episode 2: "This Is Not a Movie"

Release Date: November 10, 2025
Host: Peter McDonnell
Featuring: Nicole Earnest-Payte, Paul Holes

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Overview

This episode continues the unraveling of Nicole Earnest-Payte’s journey after being brutally attacked in her own home at 21. With skepticism from authorities and mounting self-advocacy, Nicole’s fight for justice grows more urgent as patterns of a serial predator emerge across Northern California. The narrative shifts between Nicole’s trauma, police dismissals, her relentless detective work, and the involvement of famed investigator Paul Holes—setting the stage for a larger manhunt for the NorCal Rapist.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nicole's Initial Experience with Law Enforcement

• (01:33–06:31) Nicole recounts her attempt to report the crime to Rohnert Park police, only to face skepticism and subtle victim-blaming from "Detective Diane" (a pseudonym).
  • Detectives focus suspicion on a friend, Mark, and question Nicole’s character due to her social life.
  • Detective Diane implies Nicole sought out rough sex, showing bias and a lack of empathy.
• Memorable Quotes:
  • “As I'm describing the event, [Detective Diane]’s scoffing, she's getting agitated... She was like, why didn't you just jump out the window?” — Nicole (03:47)
  • "You know, you're not acting right. Victims of rape don't act like this.” — Nicole quoting Detective Diane (04:37)

2. The Impact of Disbelief

• (05:41–06:37) Detective Diane’s disbelief impacts Nicole profoundly. Her official police interview goes missing, and the recording “disappeared,” adding to a sense of institutional betrayal.
• (06:37–08:26) Nicole describes her reaction to trauma: instead of shame, she chooses not to be defined by the event, openly sharing her story.
  • “Oh, immediately, it was a massive, life-changing thing... but it wasn't going to define me.” — Nicole (08:28)

3. The Start of a Pattern

• (09:25–14:13) Nicole discovers a press article about another similar attack in Sonoma, five months after her own. Both victims describe comparable details: a masked man, a forced entry, and a focus on disabling motion sensor lights.
  • Nicole contacts the press, pushing for public awareness and linking the cases.
  • A police spokesperson questions Nicole's credibility publicly: “There are some parts of her story that were hard to believe.” — Rohnert Park Public Safety Lt. Bob Williams (13:25)

4. Lingering Trauma & New Clues

• (14:20–17:40) The lasting effects on Nicole include panic attacks and difficulty feeling safe at home, prompting another move.
  • Months later, she receives a disturbing phone call: a man references her green robe—the one she wore during her attack—and knows she’s moved. Police track the caller, pseudonym “Carl,” but cannot directly connect him to the rape.
  • “Do you still have your little green robe?” — Mysterious caller (16:23)

5. Growing Police Involvement: Enter Paul Holes

• (18:10–20:48) The episode shifts to Paul Holes, who, in the mid-90s, starts noticing links among unsolved rapes across jurisdictions.
  • At first a young criminalist, Paul is inspired by reading deeply into serial predator psychology and forensic innovation.
• (20:48–34:44) A 1996 attack in Martinez, California, initiates Paul’s direct involvement:
  • He connects the Martinez case to a prior attack from 1992 and another in Chico, using emerging DNA analysis techniques.
  • Holes' creativity and diligence uncover a crucial semen sample through an exhaustive “acid phosphatase grid” technique.
  • “Everyone thinks about the sexual assault kit... but the guy used a condom... I ended up doing a technique that is rarely done today because it is so rigorous...” — Paul Holes (29:19–30:26)
  • His ability to tie together distant cases reveals a pattern missed by local authorities.

6. The Long Road to Validation

• (35:05–36:52) Years pass with little word to Nicole about her case. In 2006, she receives a call from Sacramento PD—a pivotal moment:

  • She learns the man who attacked her is a confirmed serial rapist, connected by DNA to at least 10 victims.
  • “The man that attacked you in 1991 is a serial rapist connected by DNA... Has Rohnert Park not called you all these years?” — Detective Paul Schindler (Sacramento PD) (36:32)

• Nicole feels both angry and validated after 15 years: “Now, people believe me... Now you can't deny this.” (36:52)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Victim Stereotypes:
  “I think a lot of people's vision of what a rape victim is supposed to look like... is something that they see in a movie... as though that's the only way you can react.” — Nicole (04:37)

• On Police Bias:
  “The police department Nicole had turned to for help publicly dragged her credibility through the mud.” — Peter McDonnell (14:01)

• On Trauma’s Daily Impact:
  “I looked up the stairs and the walls and the stairwell started to move and I started to hallucinate and I could not put a foot on the stairs... I need you to come get me.” — Nicole (14:55)

• On the Breakthrough for Nicole:
  “Now, people believe me... Now, you can’t deny this.” — Nicole (36:52)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:33 — Nicole’s first police interview and introductions to Detectives
• 03:47 — Victim-blaming during the interview
• 06:37 — Missing and withheld police recordings
• 09:25 — Nicole spots another attack in the paper
• 13:25 — Police publicly doubt Nicole’s credibility
• 16:23 — The strange, threatening phone call about the green robe
• 17:40 — Police clear “Carl” as a rape suspect
• 20:03 — Introduction to Paul Holes and his early career
• 22:54 — Forensic details of the 1996 Martinez attack
• 29:19 — Paul Holes’ creative DNA evidence techniques
• 33:42 — Linking serial attacks by MO and DNA
• 36:32 — Nicole learns her case is part of a serial series – a turning point
• 37:45 — Preview: Nicole returns to the police station, the manhunt intensifies

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Tone & Style

• Nicole: Direct and honest, refusing to hide her trauma; frustration and anger at disbelief are palpable, but there’s also drive and resolve.
• Peter McDonnell: Investigative, empathetic, and focused on detail, drawing out the broader systemic failures.
• Paul Holes: Analytical, methodical, and deeply invested in forensic science and connecting the big picture—even early in his career.

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Conclusion

This episode starkly reveals the hurdles sexual assault survivors face from law enforcement and the power of self-advocacy. Nicole’s fight, both personal and public, helps expose a broader pattern of predatory violence that authorities initially failed to connect. The introduction of Paul Holes signals a turning point—where science, dogged police work, and Nicole herself begin converging toward justice. The stakes are raised for the ongoing hunt for the NorCal Rapist, with the next episode promising new breakthroughs as leads and evidence accelerate the case forward.

Transcript

[Jonathan Van Ness]

It's Jonathan Van Ness from Getting Better. With Jonathan Van Ness, it's easy to feel hopeless, but we don't have to stay there. I'm all about finding places where we can turn that energy into hope and into action. One of those places is Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans United, or au is this quiet but mighty force working every day to preserve freedom without favor and equality without exception. I am so obsessed with that tagline. And let me tell you something, honey, that wall between church and state. Paper thin. It's got a leak, honey. It's one of the last safeguards protecting so many of our rights. So right now, from bodily autonomy to LGBTQ + rights to the future of public schools, to me, this is about creating a world where everyone gets to live as themselves as long as you're not harming anyone else. Now is not the time to curl up and hide. It's the time to link arms and stand together for a better future. Join Americans United for Separation of Church and State and their growing movement because church, state separation protects us all. Learn more and join [e-mail] better. Let's go Americans United.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Nicole]

The Binge.

[Peter McDonnell]

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 Rohnert Park Police and fire department. It's the summer of 1991. They don't have a ton of crime in Rohnert 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. 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. 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. 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.

[Nicole]

She said, we pulled Mark's record. He's been arrested for drunk in public before, and it doesn't seem like he likes police officers much.

[Peter McDonnell]

At first, Nicole thought, you know, the idea of bringing up Mark as a suspect in this case was kind of absurd. Mark was six four, and the attacker was five' ten. 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.

[Nicole]

Because, you know, the characters that I'm hanging out with, that was what she was implying. 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?

[Peter McDonnell]

When Nicole told me that, I thought, 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.

[Nicole]

She said, you know, you're not acting right. Victims of rape don't act like this. 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. 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.

[Peter McDonnell]

So do you think she was insinuating there was no rape or that this person didn't do the things you're saying?

[Nicole]

Oh, that's a good question. I don't think she believes the thing happened at all.

[Peter McDonnell]

From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, you're listening to Hunting the Boogeyman. I'm Peter McDonnell. Episode two. This is not a movie. 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.

[Nicole]

I requested it many, many years ago, and they told me that the recordings have disappeared.

[Peter McDonnell]

Huh. But somehow the transcripts of the previous interview survived, Correct? 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 Roanort 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 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. 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.

[Nicole]

Oh, the next morning.

[Peter McDonnell]

The next morning.

[Nicole]

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. 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.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Nicole]

Years older, and we were engaged by October.

[Peter McDonnell]

Wow. Fast.

[Nicole]

Okay, 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.

[Peter McDonnell]

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 Rohnert 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.

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[Yuki]

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[Peter McDonnell]

Explore the rapist had spied on the woman in Sonoma. For weeks 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 11pm 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.

[Nicole]

And I'm reading it going, this is the same guy. It's gotta be the same person.

[Peter McDonnell]

Nicole was connecting the dots even before the police were.

[Nicole]

So I called the Press Democrat and said, this happened to me in Runner Park. And they were like, excuse me, we didn't know this happened to you in Rohnert 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.

[Peter McDonnell]

The reporter, Chris Smith, called the Roanoke Park Police Department and asked about Nicole's case. He then wrote a front page story that the two rapes might be linked. Do you have a copy of that?

[Nicole]

I do. January 8, 1992 Sonoma rapes RP attack linked question mark as Sonoma police hope for a break in the rapist robber case, a Rohnert 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, rohnert Park Public Safety Lt. 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.

[Peter McDonnell]

Wow. The police department Nicole had turned to for help publicly dragged her credibility through the mud Unbelievable. I asked Nicole how she felt.

[Nicole]

I was very, very angry.

[Peter McDonnell]

In early 1992, Nicole moved back to her townhome in Roanort 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.

[Nicole]

I looked up the stairs and the walls and 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.

[Peter McDonnell]

Nicole was crying, desperate for help. She shouted his name again and again and again until finally he heard her and rushed out.

[Nicole]

And I said, we have to go. I can't live here.

[Peter McDonnell]

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 Rohnert Park PD did pursue a number of suspects in her case, including her ex neighbor, a blonde 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. 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.

[Nicole]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

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 rogue guy's real name starts with a C. And she immediately began brainstorming names.

[Nicole]

We'll call him. We'll call him Clive. Clive. No, Claude.

[Paul Holes]

No.

[Peter McDonnell]

Claude. No, no, no. Sorry.

[Nicole]

Cleo.

[Simplisafe Advertiser]

Cleo. Carl.

[Peter McDonnell]

Carl. Let's go with Carl.

[Nicole]

Carl.

[Peter McDonnell]

I'm just gonna jot this down.

[Nicole]

Carl.

[Peter McDonnell]

Carl. All right, Carl. Even though Carl Jean 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.

[Nicole]

Find for Carl G. Welcome to Verizon Wireless. The number is. Darren. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in.

[Peter McDonnell]

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. 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. 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 Rohnert 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.

[Paul Holes]

I basically became bored out of my skull. So the lab had a different unit called the Criminalistics unit, and it was staffed by Deputy Sheriff Criminalis. And that's where I really wanted that position.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Paul Holes]

Trick or treaters had waned. She fell asleep on her sofa and hears the doorbell ring and she thinks it's another trick or treater. Just opens up. The.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

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[Nicole]

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[Nicole]

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[Peter McDonnell]

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[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Paul Holes]

He orders her down onto the floor and he handcuffs her. He binds her ankles with rope and then he duct tapes her eyes, her 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 game, if you will, until she's completely naked. 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. He's flushing away the evidence. And this is, this is really right after the O.J. simpson case.

[Peter McDonnell]

What Paul means is that in 1995, when O.J. 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 O.J. 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.

[Paul Holes]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Paul Holes]

Right here. I believe it's this corner house.

[Peter McDonnell]

No kidding.

[Paul Holes]

Wow.

[Nicole]

Destination is on the right.

[Paul Holes]

Yep.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Paul Holes]

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 is got multiple victims that he is surveilling around the same time frame to see which ones are going to be most conducive to being attacked.

[Peter McDonnell]

The Martinez attack was the first time you ever came across the NorCal Rapist.

[Paul Holes]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

In 1996, Paul had been reading his way through all the books he could find about serial predators.

[Paul Holes]

And right around that same time frame, my parents, for my 25th birthday, sent me a book that was called Sexual patterns and motives. Imagine sending your son a book on sexual homicide. Right.

[Peter McDonnell]

Did they get the birthday gift right that year?

[Paul Holes]

So it turns out, yes.

[Peter McDonnell]

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. We're still in 1996.

[Paul Holes]

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 these 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.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Paul Holes]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

And why do you say that?

[Paul Holes]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

Paul took the bags of evidence and got to work. His goal, to find the offender's DNA.

[Paul Holes]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

The victim's sexual assault kit didn't include anyone else's DNA, so you have to look for other options.

[Paul Holes]

So, and this is where, you know, the evidence technician did a great job. So I have, you know, the pillow cases, I have all the sheets off the bed, the comforter off the bed. This is where he is attacking her.

[Peter McDonnell]

But finding the offender's DNA on the comforter wasn't going to be easy. After his visual inspection, that turned up nothing. Paul put the comforter under an alternative light source.

[Paul Holes]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Paul Holes]

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 acid phosphatase, is located at. Well, acid phosphatase occurs in high concentrations in semen in most people.

[Peter McDonnell]

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 boyfriend's, it was the rapist's. So where do you go from there?

[Paul Holes]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

Yep. Paul was building his own database of violent offenders from his county. I wasn't surprised. While we were 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.

[Paul Holes]

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 Aleopide four years earlier.

[Peter McDonnell]

Oh, wow. 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. After a few years of investigation, the attack became a cold case. And then Paul Holes called.

[Paul Holes]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

A few months later, the rapist struck again two hours north in the city of Chico.

[Paul Holes]

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, geez, you know, I've left blood. This is two years post O.J. simpson. And lo and behold, the Chico case had the same DNA profile.

[Peter McDonnell]

The serial rapist had been attacking with impunity for nearly 10 years. When Rohnert Park BD inactivated Nicole's case and Carl G. Was cleared, all Nicole heard about the investigation into her rape was crickets. What were you thinking had happened?

[Nicole]

There was just nothing. Just nothing. I just thought, okay, well, maybe at some point he'll attack somebody else and they'll catch him. This has to have happened somewhere else. I cannot be the only one he did this to.

[Peter McDonnell]

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.

[Nicole]

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. 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 I said, wait, wait. Press conference about what? And he said, the press conference about the case. We want to get a lot more attention to it. And I said, 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. And he said, has Rohnert 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.

[Peter McDonnell]

That phone call changed Nicole's life.

[Nicole]

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.

[Peter McDonnell]

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 Boogeyman, Nicole returns to the Rohnert park police station.

[Nicole]

Maybe you should have believed me.

[Peter McDonnell]

We find out how Nicole's case was finally linked to the series.

[Paul Holes]

This sounds like the same guy.

[Peter McDonnell]

And the hunt for the Norcal rapist goes into overdrive.

[Paul Holes]

Well, this is some good new evidence that they released today. And hopefully this is finally, after 15 years, gonna lead them to this attacker.

[Peter McDonnell]

That's what they're hoping. Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of Hunting the Boogeyman ad free right now by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. It's easy, really. Search for the binge on Apple podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on apple. Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the 1st of every month. Check out the Binge Channel page on apple podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. Hunting the Boogeyman is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence. It's hosted and reported by me, Peter McDonnell 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 Durgall. 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 Rasik and Jamie Myers. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a review. It's the best way to support us. Thanks for listening.

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[Nicole]

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[Nicole]

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