Suspect arrested in string of decades-old Alameda County kidnappings, sexual assaults

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ALAMEDA COUNTY, Calif. - Police from several Bay Area departments, in cooperation with Texas authorities, arrested a man in connection with a string of Alameda County kidnappings and sexual assaults dating back to 1994.

The arrest:

The Berkeley Police Department – with help from agencies in Richmond, Texas – arrested Lashay Durisseau, 56, on Tuesday morning for his alleged role in the crimes, which span four jurisdictions between 1994 and 2008 and involve at least seven victims.

Authorities told KTVU that two of the cases allegedly tied to Durisseau include the 2002 rape of a sex worker in car at Berkeley Marina and the sexual assault and rape of a second woman in a car in East Oakland a month later.

The backstory:

Evidence from one of the cases, which occurred in Berkeley, was tested in 2015 through a grant obtained by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office to process previously untested rape kits, according to the BPD. That testing resulted in a case-to-case DNA match linking five additional cases.

In 2020 and 2021, a grant from the California Department of Justice allowed detectives to process more than 500 cold sexual assault cases. During that time the Richmond Police Department and Oakland Police Department, as well as the Beaumont Police Department in Texas, identified cases linked to the same suspect.

"A key development occurred when the FBI obtained the suspect’s DNA for comparison testing, leading to the issuance of an arrest warrant," the BPD said.

BPD detectives traveled to Texas on Monday and coordinated with a Houston-based FBI Task Force and the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office to take Durisseau into custody at his home in Richmond, Texas the following morning.