A Navy diver who died nearly three decades ago has been linked to half a dozen home invasion and rape cases across four states after a yearslong investigation, California officials said Thursday.
All of the attacks were cold cases dating back to the 1980s and 90s, where women were sexually assaulted by a home intruder. The intruder terrorized the women, sometimes calling their homes or threatening to kill them if they reported the incidents to police, the district attorney’s office said.
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said that Sean Patrick McNulty was connected to the crimes. McNulty died by suicide in Michigan in 1997, after becoming a suspect in a 1993 Indiana rape case.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Forensic Services Bureau oversaw the testing of two rape kits collected in the county in 1982 and 1983. DNA from the tests were uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System, a database managed by the FBI that can be used to compare DNA profiles and find matches. In March 2024, investigators determined the DNA from the two cases matched, the district attorney’s office said.
The DNA was also found to match rapes in Michigan in 1994 and 1995, and a rape in Ohio in 1997. McNulty had not been named as a suspect in any of those cases. After Ventura County investigators reached out to law enforcement in Michigan and Ohio, the agencies launched a joint investigation and worked with an investigative genealogist from the Columbus Police Department.
The genealogist’s research allowed police to identify McNulty as a potential suspect in all five cases. His body had been cremated, leaving police unable to obtain a DNA sample from his remains, but investigators found the records from the 1997 Indiana rape case, where he had been named a suspect. Investigators from that case were able to find a biological sample collected from McNulty.
That sample was then compared against the DNA sample from the other cases. Scientists determined that McNulty’s DNA matched the biological samples found in all five cases.
Police have worked to contact McNulty’s victims and notify them of his identification and death. So far, only one victim has been located. The district attorney’s office said the woman told investigators she had “waited 40 years” to receive closure.
The victim in the 1997 Indiana case, where McNulty was a suspect, also said that she was “grateful after all these years” that investigators “didn’t give up” on the case.
McNulty was born in Burlingame, California and spent most of his life in Ventura County. He was arrested in the area in 1978 for placing obscene phone calls to women. He served as a diver in the Navy from 1979 to 1992.
McNulty was married in 1988 and divorced his wife prior to his death, the district attorney’s office said. His ex-wife is still alive but did not cooperate with Ventura County investigators.
An investigation into other crimes that McNulty may have committed is ongoing, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said.
Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.
The post Navy diver is linked to cold case rape cases in 4 states appeared first on CBS News.
