Deceased Navy Diver Identified As Serial Rapist, Officials Say

Investigators identified a deceased former Navy diver as the suspect responsible for committing a string of rapes beginning in the early 1980s, according to a Wednesday press release from the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office (VCDAO).

Authorities announced that Sean Patrick McNulty was connected to six rapes that occurred between 1982 and 1997 using DNA testing, according to the VCDAO press release. The then-unidentified perpetrator’s DNA profile was taken from the 1982 and 1983 rape kits and uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) as part of the Ventura County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (VCSAKI). In March 2024, the results indicated the DNA profiles from the two cases were a match.

The perpetrator DNA profile also matched that of DNA recovered from rapes occurring in 1994 in Okemos, Michigan; 1995 in Birmingham, Michigan; and 1997 in Columbus, Ohio, the district attorney’s office said. Authorities in Ventura County teamed up with agencies in Michigan and Ohio, and with the help of a Columbus Police Department (CPD) investigative genealogist, McNulty was identified as a potential suspect.

Investigators discovered that McNulty died in 1997 and was cremated. A crime analyst with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program linked him to a 1993 rape in Bloomington, Indiana. Investigators contacted the Bloomington Police Department (BPD) and learned he committed suicide in 1997 after being named a suspect in the 1993 rape case.

A sample provided by the BPD was found by the CPD to be an exact match to that of the 1997 rape in Ohio, the district attorney’s office said. Further testing by The Ventura County Sheriff’s Forensic Bureau indicated McNulty’s DNA matched the perpetrator’s DNA in the 1982 and 1983 Ventura cases and Michigan investigators matched the DNA to the the 1994 and 1995 cases as well, according to authorities. (RELATED: Nearly 10 Men Indicted For Alleged International Car Theft, Smuggling Ring)

McNulty grew up in Ventura County but lived in 14 states, including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Virginia. He served as a Navy diver from 1979 to 1992 and married his wife in 1988 before divorcing her shortly before his passing.

VCSAKI investigators were only able to locate one of McNulty’s local victims and notify her that they had identified him as the suspect, the district attorney’s office said. The victim said she’d “waited forty years” to receive closure.

An investigation into other crimes McNulty may have carried out in Ventura County and beyond remains active.