Berkeley police arrest 2008 serial rape suspect

July 8, 2016

BERKELEY -- Berkeley police have named a 24-year-old construction worker and suspected marijuana dealer as the person they say attacked "at least three" women in string of 2008 home-invasion sexual assaults.

Johnny Dunbar, of Berkeley, was charged Friday with two counts of rape and other felony sex offenses for allegedly sexually assaulting three women in their homes during armed burglaries in June and July 2008. Dunbar was 16 at the time of the crimes but is being prosecuted as an adult by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.

Fingerprints taken from Dunbar during a recent arrest for suspicion of driving with a suspended license matched fingerprints collected at a crime scene during a 2008 investigation into serial sexual assaults and peeping and prowling incidents in the city, according to Berkeley police.

Police said Dunbar left his DNA at all three crime scenes. Two of the victims were attacked on the same day, July 8, 2008. One of the July victims was raped at gunpoint after he surprised her in her home, police said. The other July victim woke up to Dunbar standing over her with a knife, police said.

She told police her attacker tried to force oral sex on her before he was scared off. Dunbar allegedly left a palm print when he broke into the home of a woman who was raped by a knife-wielding assailant on June 21, 2008.

Dunbar's fingerprints were matched to that palm print in April, and his DNA subsequently matched to the DNA left at the crime scenes. On Wednesday, Berkeley police served an arrest warrant on Dunbar at his residence in the 1300 block of Delaware Street.

Police said they also found evidence there that indicates that Dunbar was selling marijuana out of the residence, including nearly a pound of the drug, three scales, packing materials and more than $4,000 in cash.

Dunbar was scheduled to appear in front of a judge in Oakland on Friday morning. He is being held at Santa Rita Jail in lieu of more than $400,000 bail.

http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_30106250/berkeley-police-arrest-2008-serial-rape-suspect