Women’s 1980s rape kits were finally tested, CA officials say. Now suspect ID’d
For more than four decades, the home invasion rapes of two women went unsolved, California prosecutors say.
Now, with help from DNA testing, Sean Patrick McNulty, who died in 1997, has been identified as a suspect in both cases from 1982 and 1983, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said in a Sept. 4 news release.
Additionally, further DNA testing tied McNulty to three additional cold case rape cases across the country, prosecutors said.
1982 cold case rape
In 1982, a 32-year-old woman was planning on moving from a Ventura home she shared with another woman, who placed an advertisement in a newspaper looking for a new roommate, according to the news release.
The evening of March 11, 1982, the woman who had plans to move answered a phone call from a man who was interested in renting the room and gave him a general description of where the home was located, prosecutors said.
Then, after their call, officials said the phone rang again.
The woman answered, but when it seemed like no one was on the other end, she hung up, according to the district attorney.
After walking into the dining room, the woman suddenly felt a gloved hand over her mouth and “the barrel of a gun placed against her head,” officials said.
The man said, “Don’t make a sound or I’ll kill you,” then asked her “Where’s your money?” according to prosecutors.
The district attorney said the man ordered the woman into her roommate’s bedroom, where he “threw the victim on the bed, placed a pillowcase over her head, and bound her hands behind her back with a belt.”
The man sexually assaulted the woman and fled the home, prosecutors said.
Over the next few days, the woman’s roommate answered two phone calls where no one spoke, officials said.
1983 case
More than a year later on July 7, 1983, prosecutors said a 24-year-old Ventura woman answered a call from a man who said he worked at a package delivery company.
The woman gave the man her address over the phone after he said he had a package for her with an unreadable address, according to the district attorney.
When the woman got home shortly after 11 p.m. that evening, she made her way to the bedroom and someone grabbed her around her neck and held a knife to her throat, prosecutors said.
“Be quiet, or I’ll slit your throat,” a man told her, according to the news release..
Using a belt he found in her bedroom, prosecutors said the man bound the woman’s hands behind her.
The woman tried to free her hands, and the man slapped her,according to prosecutors.
“He then tied a bandana around her mouth and placed a pillowcase over her head,” the district attorney said.
The man shoved her on the bed, asking her, “Where’s your money?” according to the news release.
Then, the man undressed the woman and sexually assaulted her, prosecutors said.
Following the alleged assault, the man told the woman, “Don’t you dare tell the cops or I will come back and kill you,” prosecutors said.
Sexual assault kits tested
Authorities tested the two sexual assault kits from the 1982 and 1983 rapes “as part of the Ventura County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative,” according to the news release..
“VCSAKI is a countywide effort that was launched in 2022 to test every sexual assault kit for the presence of DNA and investigate unsolved cases,” prosecutors said, adding that the initiative is funded by grants from the United States Department of Justice.
As of Sept. 5, 1,668 kits have been tested, while an additional 1,178 are awaiting testing, according to the initiative’s website.
Prosecutors said the testing found a man’s DNA and his DNA profile were entered into the Combined DNA Index System.
CODIS is “a computer software program that operates local, state, and national databases of DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence, and missing persons,” according to federal prosecutors.
Investigators learned in March 2024 that DNA profiles from the 1982 and 1983 cases were a match, the district attorney said, adding that the DNA profile was also a match to a man accused in other rapes across the country: 1994 in Okemos, Michigan; 1995 in Birmingham, Michigan; and 1997 in Columbus, Ohio.
In all five rape cases, the man’s identity was unknown, according to prosecutors.
Joint investigation leads to suspect ID
A Ventura County investigator launched a joint investigation with authorities in Michigan and Ohio in hopes of identifying the man, prosecutors said.
According to the district attorney, an investigative genealogist with the Columbus Police Department traced the man’s DNA and identified McNulty as a potential suspect.
To officially confirm McNulty as a suspect, however, investigators needed a direct DNA comparison, prosecutors said.
Though investigators found McNulty’s headstone in a Ventura County cemetery,officials said, they learned he had been cremated after he died by suicide.
Investigators tracked down “a 1993 rape case from Bloomington, Indiana where McNulty was the named suspect” and found “a biological sample collected from McNulty,” prosecutors said.
When McNulty’s DNA sample was tested, it was “an exact match to the 1997 rape in Columbus, Ohio,” according to the district attorney.
Prosecutors said testing from the Ohio case was sent to investigators in Ventura County and Michigan, confirming McNulty’s DNA was a match in the three other rape cases.
An investigation is ongoing, as authorities said they believe there may be additional victims.
McNulty “spent most of his childhood in Ventura” and “graduated from Buena High School in 1977,” prosecutors said. He worked as a diver with the Navy from 1979 to 1992.
“McNulty is believed to have lived in or spent time in the following states as well as in the Philippines:”
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Maryland
- Michigan
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- Ohio
- Virginia
Anyone information is asked to contact District Attorney Investigator Yumi Kirk at (805) 477-1638 or at yumi.kirk@venturacounty.gov.
Ventura is about a 70-mile drive northwest from Los Angeles.
This story was originally published September 5, 2025 at 1:47 PM with the headline "Women’s 1980s rape kits were finally tested, CA officials say. Now suspect ID’d."
