For the second time in a week, a suspect in a series of decades-old sex crimes in the Sacramento region — including Davis — pleaded guilty to his conduct.
Mark Jeffrey Manteuffel, arrested a year ago in connection with three rapes that occurred between May 1992 and March 1994, admitted Thursday to multiple sexual-assault charges, with enhancements for use of a knife and inflicting great bodily injury, in Sacramento Superior Court.
According to The Sacramento Bee, a judge accepted the plea with the understanding that Manteuffel, 60, also would plead guilty to attacking a UC Davis student who was jogging on a South Davis greenbelt back in January 1994.
Yolo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven said Friday that Manteuffel will appear in Yolo Superior Court, where he is charged with kidnapping with intent to commit robbery, following his Aug. 14 sentencing in the Sacramento case.
In all, Manteuffel faces more than 30 years in state prison. While living in Northern California, Manteuffel was a student and part-time lecturer in criminal justice at Sacramento State University and went on to retire from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, for which he worked in several states.
Authorities arrested Manteuffel on June 28, 2019, in Decatur, Ga., the result of what officials called a “collaborative and extensive ongoing investigation” that involved DNA technology to make the long-elusive identification.
“This is evidence that does not forget,” Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said at a news conference announcing Manteuffel’s arrest.
“At a time when DNA was barely even heard of when it came to solving crime, law enforcement found the evidence in these cases, meticulously collecting it and preserving it, never really knowing if someday they would find an answer,” Schubert said.
In the Davis incident, the 22-year-old UCD student was jogging along a greenbelt in the area of Cowell Boulevard and Washoe Street when a suspect grabbed her and disabled her with a Taser stun gun on the night of Jan. 11, 1994.
“She was going to get dinner at the local market,” Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said at last year’s news conference. “He tased her and dragged her away, where he committed monstrous crimes.”
“This crime haunted the community of Davis for 25 years,” Reisig added, noting that the woman was “very happy” to learn of an arrest in the case. “Predators and monsters can’t hide forever any longer — the clock is ticking on these criminals, and their time is up.”
Manteuffel’s plea came just three days after Joseph James DeAngelo, identified through DNA evidence two years ago as the East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer, pleaded guilty to 13 murders and admitted to 75 other crimes — including attacks in three Davis homes during the summer of 1978 that went uncharged due to expired statues of limitations.
DeAngelo’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Aug. 17 — and may take longer than one day — at which time prosecutors say his victims will deliver their impact statements without limits to time or content.
Another alleged serial offender with Davis ties, Roy Charles Waller, has been ordered to stand trial in connection with 15 sexual assaults tied by either DNA or similar conduct patterns to the NorCal Rapist, who raped women in six counties between 1991 and 2006. Two of the crimes, involving three UCD students, occurred in Davis in 1997 and 2000.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
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