Serial Rapist Linked to Decades-Old Cases in California, Ohio and Michigan

A former Navy diver has been connected to a series of rapes that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s in California, Michigan and Ohio.

The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office announced on Thursday, Sept. 4, following a decades-long investigation, that Sean Patrick McNulty was connected through DNA evidence to two unsolved home invasion rapes in Ventura, Calif., in the early 80s and four other home invasion rapes in Michigan and Ohio in the 90s.

McNulty, who grew up in Ventura, died by suicide in Michigan in 1997.

According to a press release, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Forensic Services Bureau oversaw the testing of the two sexual assault kits collected from the 1982 and 1983 rapes in Ventura. That evidence was then uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and linked to rapes in Okemos, Mich., in 1994, Birmingham, Mich., in 1995 and Columbus, Ohio in 1997.

However, the suspect’s identity was unknown.

The district attorney’s office said an investigative genealogist then worked with the suspect’s DNA profile and ultimately identified McNulty as the possible perpetrator.

But, they needed a sample of his DNA to be sure.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

During the investigation, a crime analyst with the FBI came across a 1993 rape case in Bloomington, Ind., where McNulty was the suspect. According to the district attorney’s office, McNulty committed suicide in 1997 after he discovered he was a suspect in the case.

Bloomington investigators looked for evidence in the cold case and found a biological sample collected from McNulty. That sample was then compared to the 1997 rape in Columbus, Ohio and matched.

The results of the DNA testing were then compared to the California and Michigan cases and also determined to be a match.

McNulty graduated from Buena High School in Ventura, Calif., in 1977. The following year, he was arrested for making obscene calls to a woman. In 1979, he became a diver for the Navy.

The district attorney’s office said McNulty had traveled to or lived in the Philippines, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska and Virginia.

Investigators said they attempted to locate McNulty’s victims to notify them of his identification and death. One of them told an investigator “that she had ‘waited forty years’ to receive closure,” per the press release.