Suspected serial rapist charged with seven separate attacks around Contra Costa

MARTINEZ — Police here have arrested a 39-year-old man in connection with seven separate sexual assaults dating back to 2017, including an incident where a woman was attacked by an intruder in her home who had attempted to rape her a week earlier, according to court records.

Christopher D. Owens, of Martinez, was charged Tuesday with 12 felonies and one misdemeanor, including forcible oral copulation, forcible digital penetration, sexual battery, assault with intent to commit rape, and multiple counts of forcible rape, court records show. Police allege that he sought out vulnerable victims, sometimes offering them rides, before sexually assaulting them inside his vehicle.

Owens was arrested at his Martinez home July 7 and remains in Martinez Detention Facility in lieu of $1.45 million bail, court records show. His arraignment has been set for July 12 before Judge Nancy Stark.

The most recent sexual assault occurred on July 2, just five days before his arrest, authorities allege.

Police began investigating Owens in March 27, 2017, when a woman known in court records as Jane Doe 1 reported that he offered her a ride on the day she was released from Contra Costa County jail, but instead drove her to Walnut Creek and raped her inside his vehicle. Police launched an investigation, but re-classified it as a suspicious circumstances case after they lost contact with Doe 1, who was homeless.

But five years later, in May 2022, the Contra Costa Sheriff started looking at Owens as a suspect in two sexual assaults in unincorporated Martinez involving the same woman. On Valentine’s Day 2022, Owens allegedly offered the woman a ride home from a liquor store, then walked inside her home and attempted to sexually assault her. Six days later, he allegedly broke into the woman’s home, sexually assaulted her, and attempted to rape and sodomize her, police say.

Owens was linked to the Martinez attacks through DNA, after biological material from the area was linked to him through a search of an FBI database known as the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, authorities say.

After the February incidents, police in Walnut Creek re-opened the 2017 case as a sexual assault and taking a deeper look at Owens. It was after this that they linked him to four more attacks, and listed him as a suspect in other suspicious incidents, court records show.

In August 2017, Owens allegedly picked up a woman at a Concord homeless encampment, asking her if she wanted to get high, then raped her inside his pickup truck.

That same truck was noted in a 2019 incident in Pleasant Hill, when a 911 caller reported seeing a woman with no pants on jumping out of it and running away, police say. In 2019, a Pleasant Hill policeman noted seeing the truck parked in a parking lot while responding to a homeless woman’s report that she had been raped, but Owens has not been charged in connection to either incident.

Last March 11, Owens allegedly sexually battered a woman and vandalized her bedroom, resulting in one felony assault and one misdemeanor charge. He was also charged with an assault with intent to commit rape in 2020, the criminal complaint says.

Finally, on July 2, Owens allegedly offered to buy cigarettes for a homeless woman, but attacked her as soon as they got into his van. He faces a felony count of forcible sexual penetration in that incident. Police say the woman reported the assault at a local hospital and that surveillance footage at a nearby liquor store shows him buying her cigarettes.

As part of the investigation, police tracked down the woman who reported the original attack in March 2017, authorities say.

During the investigation, police uncovered evidence Owens was selling large quantities of marijuana, but no related charges have been filed. Four days after the Walnut Creek incident, on March 31, 2017, he was arrested on suspicion of drug and gun possession in Missouri, court records show.

The investigation is still ongoing. Police say anyone with information can contact the Walnut Creek Police Department Investigation’s Bureau at 925-943-5868 and ask to speak with Det. Katie Eames.