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DNA Break Leads to Texas Arrest in Decades-Old CaliforniaTexas Sex Assault Cases

Grant-funded testing connected long-unsolved attacks across four cities, enabling a coordinated arrest.

Overview

  • Berkeley police identified 56-year-old Lashay Durisseau as the suspect in at least seven kidnappings and sexual assaults.
  • Detectives worked with a Houston-based FBI task force and the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office to take him into custody in Richmond, Texas, without incident.
  • The linked cases span 1994 to 2008 in Berkeley and Oakland, California, and in Richmond and Beaumont, Texas.
  • Testing of evidence from a 2002 Berkeley assault in 2015 produced a DNA match that connected five additional cases.
  • Grants from the Alameda County district attorney and the California Department of Justice funded rape-kit testing and a review of more than 500 cold sexual-assault cases, and the FBI later obtained the suspect's DNA for comparison that led to an arrest warrant.