Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch - Hunting the Bogeyman | 6. Answers

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Nicole wrestles with whether she should try and meet the rapist face to face. Then she finds some measure of peace in an unexpected way. Binge all episodes of Hunting the Bogeyman ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access. From serial killer nurses to psychic scammers – The Binge is your home for true crime stories that pull you in and never let go. The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. Hunting the Bogeyman is brought to you by Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence Productions. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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obsession. The Binge. After Nicole and I had been talking for a couple months, I asked her if her feelings about meeting Roy Waller face-to-face had changed. I don't want to sit down with him as like his victim is almost an intellectual curiosity, almost like I'm a detective. He's like a black hole. And he's still a black hole. And I don't like that.

Nicole still had questions that only Roy Waller could answer. So even from prison, he still held on to control and power. and I think Nicole wants to take it back. But how is she going to do that if he won't admit to what he's done? What if she makes all this effort, builds up all this expectation, and he won't tell her a thing? I wasn't sure if Nicole would even be allowed to meet Waller behind bars,

but I started to look into it. In the meantime, I thought maybe I could help find some of the answers Nicole was seeking. For starters, Nicole still didn't know how her case had finally been linked by DNA to the NorCal series. I thought Paul Holes should be the one to tell her. So one morning, we knocked on the door of her lovely house in Sonoma County. She was expecting us, and so were her two little dogs. You guys are so quiet.

What is it today? They usually bark their heads off on everybody. All right. Come on in. Would you like any water? From Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence, you're listening to the finale of Hunting the Booker. man. I'm Peter MacDonald. This is episode six. Answers.

Paul, Nicole, and I sat in the dining room of Nicole's home, and for the first time, he told her how he got involved in her case. I was working for the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Crime Lab, and then ultimately, Detective Caleb Helt, he and I collaborated, and it was like, well, Roner Park, they have DNA in their case. We need to see, is that related or not? And I said, my lab will do the DNA work. It was specifically to generate a DNA profile and see if your attack was related to these other unsolved cases.

They'd never done that before. They hadn't pursued the DNA at that point. Is that news to you? Uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I know LaPelt was constantly harassing them. And so eventually, so LaPelt brought that evidence to me to my lab when formally the DNA from your case was linked to the NorCal rapist series.

So what you're saying is that not only were you aware and the Roner Park was aware, in 2002, that the case that they had in their jurisdiction in 1991 was a serial rapist that you've identified. They should have been aware. Now, I can't say for certain that there were, but I don't know how they wouldn't be. Wow. Not one person bothered to tell me until 2006. I wanted the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety to have a chance to respond to what Nicole had told me about her interview with the two detectives, the DNA testing, and the way they talked to about her case in the newspaper. So I reached out to the chief of police, Tim Mattis.

Chief Mattis had joined the department at the end of 2018, just a few months after Roy Waller was caught. Mattis knew about the NorCal Rapist series, but he didn't know about Nicole's case in particular. I filled him in on what Nicole had told me and emailed him a copy of the newspaper article from 1992, the one where Rohnert Park questioned Nicole's credibility and said, there are some parts of her story that were hard to believe. Then, Chief Madison and I hopped on the phone.

I first asked him about the article. That was unfortunate. I don't know of any investigative class I've ever been to. Statements like that would have ever been given to a reporter to doubt a victim. Our job is to be advocates for the victim. And the facts of the case will, in the end, lead, lead where it needs to go, but to question the victim's credibility like that was, that's nothing I've ever done and nothing I would ever support.

I also asked him about when Officer Diane told Nicole that her account of the rape sounded like a movie. Remember how I was told that the transcript of that interview couldn't be found? Well, Chief Mattis did some digging of his own. I can't find the transcript of that interview. And so I couldn't find where that, like that statement. was made regarding the, you know, this sounds like it came out of a movie. It's not the approach that at any department I ever worked in.

Our job is to investigate the crimes and take care of our victims, not doubt them. That was nice to hear. But what Chief Mattis said about following the facts reminded me of something that had worried me since I began covering this story. Had Roder Park's doubt of Nicole impacted the rigor with which they investigated her case? Put plainly, did Waller? commit more rapes because they didn't believe Nicole. I asked Chief Mattis.

When I pulled this case to review it a couple days ago after we talked, I was reading it from a, let's find out what we did wrong in this case. And I wasn't seeing it. They didn't investigate it like they doubted her. They went after every lead they could and exhausted it. Chief Mattis said it does not appear to him that there was a missed opportunity to find Roy Waller sooner. I didn't see anywhere where I thought, oh, if you'd have done this, you'd have probably

caught him. If all of them had been done in Roner Park, it might have been different, but they were all over the place. So I'm so thankful that, you know, DNA came along, and we were able to get enough evidence at the scene in 91 that helped later. I think Doubt may have played a role in one big missed opportunity. As Chief Mattis pointed out, the rapist attacked across such a huge region that it was almost impossible for any one jurisdiction to solve the series. So linking the cases was

essential. And the first opportunity to do so, at least through M.O., was six months after Nicole was attacked, when that similar rape occurred in the town of Sonoma. What if, instead of doubting Nicole in the newspaper, Ronard Park had confidently come forward and said, yes, we believe this victim. And we believe there's a serial rapist on the loose in Northern California. When Chief Madison and I first talked, he said he'd just read Nicole's police report for the first time, and he was surprised by what an absolutely phenomenal witness she was. It felt like we'd come full circle, that after all these years, the head of the Roanort Park

Police Department was now seeing what makes Nicole unique. victims of sexual assault, they will, they just go to a different place in their mind while this is happening to them, right? I got the feeling in a reading her statement that she realized I can't do anything physically right now to stop this, but I can surely use my other senses. I can concentrate and just try to remember everything that's happening to me. She said, I'm going to win a long run on this. You may have me right now. But at some point, I'm going to win, and she really concentrated on focusing on the moment

and staying in the moment. And just the detail she was able to give was incredible. In reading that, I was like, how did she do this? We should be celebrating the fact that we've got an amazing witness here. For a long time, Nicole told me, her anger about what happened with the Rohnert Park police had pulled her focus away from the rape itself. But when she learned that her case was part of the series, her focus turned to catching him. And she wanted to understand how someone could become such a monster.

I figured Paul Holes might be the one with answers to those questions. After all, Paul's the guy whose parents gave him a book about sexual predators as a 25th birthday gift. For his whole career, Paul has been thinking about why and how people like Waller become boogeymen. Paul started off with a bit of a story. He said, imagine it's nighttime, and you're walking alone in a nice neighborhood. When you suddenly decide to step off the sidewalk

and go through someone's gate into their yard. How would that feel? You get a little bit uncomfortable because in our society, it's like, well, that's that person's property. Now imagine being a peeping Tom where not only you're walking onto their property, you're looking inside their house. For Waller, Paul said,

That part was probably thrilling. The next step was to go inside the person's house when nobody's home. That was the next social barrier, and only certain people, people like Waller, would cross it. There's like video, surveillance videos, of offenders that have broken into a house while residents are asleep, and the offender will just stand at the foot of the bed and watch them. That is a person that is fantasizing about taking that next step and going hands-on. Well, when somebody is breaking into a house and sexually assaulting, well, they likely have hundreds of burglaries in their past. I'm pretty sure this is NorCal Rapist, Waller.

He is now, you know, getting off of being inside this woman's residence. He's probably breaking into homes during his teenage years, and he's, you know, just starts ramping up. Sexual assaults are so underreported, there is a chance that in between some of these cases, he's got other victims that have just never been tied to. He has to. I can't imagine. You don't just stop doing that. And you do see, you know, offenders will do cases and clusters.

Sometimes you'll see an uptick in attacks when work is getting stressful. get fired. Well, he had been fired right before me. That's true. And at the time, he had two children with different mothers. One was a newborn. Waller remained unemployed for the rest of 1991, which overlaps with the rape in Sonoma, the one Nicole noticed in the newspaper. It's never been proven to be Roy Waller, but the MO was identical. Then in February, the day before Valentine's Day, Waller attacked a woman in Vallejo. That's two maybe three rapes in nine months, all while unemployed. A few months later, he got his job at UC Berkeley. Nicole also wonders how Roy Waller found her. The general assumption has been that

he saw her ad in the newspaper for a roommate. But that doesn't explain how he knew she'd had an expensive video camera in her house just a few weeks earlier, a video camera that she no longer had when she posted the newspaper ad. When Waller called Nicole, pretending to be Bob Smith. He probably got her phone number from the newspaper. But he may have begun stalking her weeks before that. His agitation about the camera is interesting, because I'm not thinking that the agitation is,

well, he just lost out on stealing this very valuable camera. I don't either. I think, and I will go to my grave thinking this, I think he wanted to record these. act. Oh, sure. And that he was pissed that he couldn't. And so I think that's what really got him angry is that it wasn't there. But it's interesting because he did steal my, he stole my regular camera. And he took a picture of the top of his head with his hair. You could see his hair. You could tell something had been on it. Took a picture of the top of his hair, took the film

out, left it on my coffee table, and took the camera. And I mean, there's definitely a voyeur type of aspect to him. I would not put it past him to have left a little message. I think when he was inside your house and he saw that camera, he may have left a message on that camera. Oh, I didn't even go there.

I think he could have sat there and filmed himself. You know, that's part of his fantasy is he's left you a message. And now that's gone. Now the, oh God, I never even thought about that. That is really creepy. Yeah.

Well, that's how these guys think. God. which raised another question. Where did Waller's M.O. come from? Nicole had told the detectives from Rohnert Park that Waller's crime seemed scripted, and they took that in the wrong direction. But what she meant was

that Waller's every action seemed practiced. You mentioned you think he's going off of a script. Yes, he is. He has developed a fantasy. He very well could have. seen something that really kind of just turned him on. That reminded me a few days earlier when Paul and I drove through the East Bay along I-80 toward Vallejo, he brought up the Zodiac killer, who has famously never been found.

In the late 1960s, Zodiac killed five or more people, praying on couples. You know, Vallejo is Zodiac stomping grounds, right? Yes. There was that murder at Lake Beriasse. Lake Beriesa, right? Yep, so that's, that was his third case. In 1969, the Zodiac Killer, wearing a mask and a weird costume, approached a young couple having a picnic near the lake.

He threw bindings to the woman and had her tie up the man. Then, the Zodiac Killer tied up the woman and stabbed both of them. Only the man survived. I've wondered if that attack inspired Golden State Killer, with his ammo and how he approached his couples. Interesting. Learning from the serial killer who came before him. And that's what they do.

They pay attention. Nicole told me that when she heard that the Golden State Killer was caught, her first reaction was, huh, maybe he has a son who became the NorCal rapist. It was kind of a joke, but the idea was, like Paul said,

these predators learn from the ones who came before them. And it fits in Roy Waller. case. He was born in 1960 and was a teenager in Lake County when Joseph DiAngelo, a.k.a. the Golden State Killer, was making headlines just 90 minutes south, breaking into homes wearing a mask and binding and raping women. Lake County is also just north of Lake Beriesa, a key location in Zodiac Lower. So it's highly possible that Waller-based part of his MO off of these two serial killers. One of the biggest unsolved mysteries of Nicole's case

is the terrifying phone call she got in 1992. It was a year after the attack, and she'd just gotten married. He was a big guy, he was, you know, a big Norwegian dude. I thought, this guy can protect me. He can protect me from anyone. They had just moved into a new house in Petaluma when she got the phone call. And he said, well, I see you've moved. And I said, who is this? And he said, where's that little green robe?

You might remember that the Petaluma police found the caller. He was a local guy who'd been in the military. In everyone's mind, including Paul's, the guy we're calling Carl G was suspect number one. But of course, Carl was eventually eliminated with DNA. It was like, how is this not him? What is interesting about the Carl phone call as well is that behaviorally, it seems to fit what Waller would do, right? Yes.

Well, Roy Waller called the Halloween victim like a month later at her job? Yes. If Carl didn't do it, how does he know about the green robe? Maybe you remember this. I called every number I could find for Carl G and got nothing. So I emailed him.

I wasn't sure if I had the right address, But eventually, he emailed me back. And he gave me his correct phone number. Cold mornings, holiday plans. This is when I need my wardrobe to just work. Stuff that looks sharp, feels good, and that I'll actually reach for. That's why I go with quince.

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Quince.com slash crimes. On the night before Halloween in 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was murdered, but police failed to make an arrest until in 2000 her one-time neighbor Michael Skakel was arrested. He was also a cousin of the Kennedys. The Kennedy connection is the reason that most people know about this case.

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And for over 35 years now, that has been a mystery to her that she would like to resolve. Yeah. Here's just as honest as I can be, is that my memory of those days is really not great because I was just pretty regularly under the influence of something. I can explain to you my MO with regard to phone calls that I have. made in a very addictive compulsive disgusting ways okay it was luck it was sheer luck there was a way that I had of manipulating conversations on the phone much like a caro card reader that people would give up information that they didn't realize they were giving up I believe I met Nicole at Red Lion Hotel and thought that she was an attractive person.

And because of the way I sit in my own struggles, would never have had a real chance at. So I would fantasize. Okay. So you're saying you met Nicole at the Red Lion. Red Lion, was able to ascertain her name, and decided to call her to take your fantasy just one step further, and the robe was pure coincidence. If I'm remembering it correctly, it's a battle we can give you. When we hung up, I puzzled over Carl's claim that he'd intuited, like a psychic.

that not only did Nicole have a green robe, but that the robe was frighteningly significant. It was the only thing she was wearing when the rapist attacked. Could anyone really intuit a detail like that from a 30-second phone call? That detail cast Carl as the rapist, so much so that not only did Nicole believe it, but so did Paul Holes, Avis Beery, and Kayla Pelt. Only when Carl's DNA didn't match, were they certain it wasn't a lot. him. Nicole told me she's never been to the Red Lion Hotel, where Carl claims he met her. He may not remember how he came across her, or he may not want to tell me, but I don't think

he found out about the robe through some psychic phenomena. What if Roy Waller told him about it? So I emailed Carl a photo of Waller, circa 1991, and asked, do you know who this is? Carl wrote me back and said, unfortunately, yes. But he couldn't remember where he'd met him. Maybe at a bar in Roner Park, he said. So, the green robe is still a mystery. One thing is clear to me, though, even though Carl broke some of the social barriers Paul talked about,

he never became a boogeyman like Roy Waller. Carl's now married with kids, and he admitted to me that he made a lot of mistakes. This was one of them, but he's trying to atone. Waller will live in a jail cell until he died. dies. He doesn't get a second chance. And in prison hierarchies, rapists are near the bottom. Will he die denying what he's done? Or can he find the courage to admit it and show remorse and give Nicole and maybe others the answers they're looking for?

It turns out, Nicole's interest in meeting with Waller isn't an anomaly. 30 states offer programs to facilitate meetings between victims and offenders, including California. The victim has to initiate it, and the offender has to agree to it. They say it can help victims of violent crimes, including murder and sexual assault, heal. But they caution against it in cases where the offender acted in a sadistic way, like Waller did. I sent information about the program to Nicole, and she brought it up with Paul. I'm just more curious. I can tell you're a very strong person.

But I can also see what he's going to try to do is he's going to try to push your buttons. And that might provide you some insight in terms of facts of the case that you're looking to get answered. But you may walk away and he's pushed a button where you're just like, oh. Shit. Damn, he got me. You know, there's a reason why some of these convicted predators, you know, they're never shown photos of their victims because they feed off of that. Right. And him sitting across a table from you could just be a big turn on.

Because his fantasies never stop. They never go away. I always say you have to know how this type of offender identifies. So like BTK, Dennis Rader. Dennis Raider, aka BTK, meaning bind torture kill, is a serial killer from Kansas who killed at least 10 people. He was a churchgoer, a Boy Scout leader, and was married with the two children. When he was arrested, he was going, that's all a facade.

I'm BTK. He identified as the predator. With Waller, how does he identify? While Waller was in jail, awaiting sentencing, He occasionally talked with his family members on the phone. Nicole had heard about some of these calls. There was a lot of crying and sobbing. It's not me.

How are they doing this to me? I'm being railroad. Waller wasn't willing to admit that he was a rapist. The police planted the evidence. I can't believe this. Oh, my God. You know. So then if he's admitting to you, here's how I did it.

Then he's also admitting that he lied to his family and his daughter on all those phone calls from prison. I found some transcripts of Waller's phone calls from prison to his wife. He acts like an innocent man caught in the web of a corrupt system. At the end of these calls, before saying goodbye, he'd say something really disturbing. He'd say, be careful, it's nighttime, check the windows, make sure all the doors are locked. It's chilling to read his words. He was lying to his wife by acting like she should be careful of predators like the NorCal rapist,

as if it wasn't him. I've since called some of Waller's family members. One of them hung up on me three times. Another doesn't want to discuss it. But a third talked with me briefly under the condition that I not use their name because they're afraid of some of the family members who believe he's innocent.

The person I spoke with has known Waller for a long time. They told me he presented as normal, but that he could be socially awkward. He could be cringy in a sexual way. And there was just something about him. This person couldn't put a finger on it. It was off. But they never thought he was a serial rapist.

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for a referral to a facilitator who could tell me how these victim offender meetings work. They told me to call one of their favorite facilitators, Rebecca Weicker, a co-founder of a not-for-profit group called MEND Collaborative, which handles these victim-offender dialogues. Rebecca has been doing this work for 10 years. I asked her, how does the process work? So there's probably anywhere from four to nine to 12 months of preparation. We talk with the incarcerated person.

We want to understand their insight into why they committed their crime. And with the survivor, we talk with them about what their experience has been and what they are hoping to get out of the dialogue. And this is a voluntary and confidential process. I've seen that people come with questions that have been plaguing them for decades and get answers.

And then for the incarcerated person, they get to apologize, they get to take responsibility, they get to show up as a more than their crime, as a full human being. I asked Rebecca, what if a victim wanted to meet an offender who was found guilty, but denied committing the crimes? And I didn't mean a situation where there was actual doubt, as in a wrongful conviction case,

but rather, someone in outright denial of the facts. It's rare that somebody would say, I didn't do it. And it's even more rare that they would say I didn't do it, and I'll still participate in a process where I'm going to engage with a survivor in some way. Those are not the typical cases that we get, I'll just say. Roy Waller's crimes are atypical. His denial is atypical, and his remorse, as far as anyone can tell, is non-existent. What Nicole wants from him, he may not be willing to give, but he might be willing to meet with her.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has connected Nicole with a facilitator. It might even be Rebecca. But the rest of Nicole's journey to talk with Waller will be a private one. It could take months. It could also never happen. But if it does, I hope that Nicole gets the answers she's looking for. I won't be there for that part. But when I think of Nicole facing Waller, I see her getting answers and reclaiming control.

It's a light on the horizon, a North Star, and she's moving toward it. Right after the trial in 2020, Nicole got a surprising email from a woman named Melissa. When Roy Waller was arrested, investigators had knocked on Melissa's front door in Rohnert Park and asked to come inside and measure her rooms for an exhibit at his trial. Melissa had no idea that her townhome was where the NorCal rapist committed one of his attacks. When she saw Nicole on the news, she put two and two together. Melissa emailed Nicole that if she ever wanted to come over to cleanse the place of negative energy, she was welcome to.

Recently, Nicole decided it was time. So on a sunny day, we drove to Roner Park to her old townhome. Yep, this all looks exactly the same as I used to. So where she's parked is where I parked my car. Okay, open for you. Yep. So that was what I used as my front door. Okay.

Oh, my goodness. Here we are. Here we are. The memories. Looks exactly the same. We walked through the gate and into Melissa's patio. And there she was. How are you?

It's so nice to meet you. Oh, my goodness. How are you? It's so nice to meet you. Oh, it's so pretty back here. Thank you. Nicole and Melissa hugged, and then she led us inside. I can't wait to see what you've done with the place.

Is this the same door? Yeah, this is the... Well, no, I redid all the windows. Oh, you did, okay. Nicole went right into the small living room. This is where my couch was. Yeah, that's where my TV was. Yeah, yeah.

Do you mind if I go upstairs? Do you want to go by yourself? Um, sure. That'd actually be great if I can't. This would probably be a good place for me. Sorry, I'm having a... This has always been the hardest part of these stairs. Nicole stopped halfway up the stairs, started to come back down, stopped again, and then tried to go back up. I don't know why the stairs are a problem for me. I do know why the stairs are a problem for me.

The stairs are when I first realized that I was in real trouble. It wasn't until I was on the stairs. The stairs are always a big problem. We're always a big problem for me. Sorry. But actually, water would be great. Thank you. Nicole had come so far.

and yet being in this house again, climbing the stairs to the bedroom, it was understandable that she struggled, but she didn't want to leave. I didn't expect that to happen at all. That doesn't normally happen now. It's been 30-some-odd years. So, I think staging is a good idea. How do we do this thing again? It's called smudging.

smudging. Smudging, I read, is a spiritual ritual of indigenous peoples in North America. It's meant to purify and cleanse a place of negative energy. I've never done it. Melissa and Nicole hadn't either. But this seemed like the right place to try it. Nicole had come down and we were standing in the kitchen. She picked up a bundle of sage.

You just light the end, you wait for the smoke to start generating, then you blow it out. And you'll want to keep it over the bowl. Do we each do our own, or do we do one? Yeah, let me get you another bowl. Okay. And we like the whole thing. Until it starts smoking. Yeah, maybe.

Oh, it smells good. And then we start walking around, right? Melissa opened all the windows, and Nicole walked to the corners of the rooms downstairs and fanned the smoke. It rose, pooled, and flowed outside. Spent a good amount of time where the couch was. Then Nicole climbed to the stairs again and waved the smoke in front of her. You don't mind if I go in your room.

I didn't expect this. I didn't expect this. I let the stairwell to go away. ad-free right now by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts. All ad-free.

Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand-new series. That's all episodes, all at once. 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. Hunting the Boogieman is an original production

of Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence. It's hosted and reported by me, Peter MacDonald. 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.

Her lawyer is Allison Sherry. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rassick, and Jamie Myers. An extra special thanks to Nicole Ernest Pate for all her candid storytelling. Thanks also to Paul Holes, Avis Beery, Chris Orr, Keith Hill, Carlos Pate, Kay LaPelt, Kirk Campbell, Monica Jekowski, Chief Tim Mattis, and Melissa. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review. It's the best way to support us. Thank you for listening.