19-May-2015

Bakersfield "East Side Rapist" sentenced to life plus 423 years

Bakersfield, CA

In California, Bakersfield's "East Side Rapist" was sentenced on May 19 to life in prison without parole, plus 423 years. Kern County prosecutor Cynthia Zimmer said she was "very relieved that Billy Ray Johnson, who is a sadistic monster, will spend every day of the rest of his life in state prison, where he belongs for committing these heinous crimes against very innocent victims."

Biological evidence collected at multiple crime scenes found DNA, but human review could not interpret the mixtures. Cybergenetics TrueAllele® technology separated the mixtures to produce match statistics for eight items, placing the serial rapist and his victims at three scenes. The Kern County crime laboratory independently replicated these results on their own TrueAllele system. Cybergenetics' Dr. Mark Perlin and the crime lab’s Garett Sugimoto both testified about TrueAllele results at the trial, which lasted three months.

• 'Sadistic monster' gets life in prison for Bakersfield rapes - Newspaper