Christopher David Owens, 42, offered victims drugs or cigarettes, but also broke into one woman’s home, according to police.
MARTINEZ — A local resident has been sentenced to 16 years and six months after accepting a plea deal involving seven different sexual assaults around Contra Costa County.
In an agreement with county prosecutors, Christopher David Owens, 42, agreed to convictions on four different rape charges, as well as a charge of assault with intent to commit a felony, and an attempted sexual assault. He was formally sentenced in December and sent to prison on New Year’s Eve, records show.
Each of the charges related to a different incident and a different victim, covering a period from 2017 to 2022. Owens receives credit for time served in jail since 2022, when he was arrested.
Authorities say that Owens drove around Contra Costa in a van or a pickup truck, offering women drugs, cigarettes, or rides, then attacking them when they were alone. He was also accused of breaking into a woman’s home and assaulting her, just one week after attempting to sexually assault the same woman, according to court records.
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.
Owens faced life in prison if he’d been convicted as originally charged, his attorney, Seth Morris, noted in a statement to this news organization.
“Through strong defense work and challenges to witness credibility, we were able to resolve the case for a sentence that will allow Mr. Owens to return to society, regain his freedom, and rebuild his life,” Morris said.
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.
After the 2022 incidents, police in Walnut Creek reopened the 2017 case as a sexual assault and took 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.
During the investigation police also uncovered evidence Owens was selling large quantities of marijuana, but he was never charged, authorities said. He is currently being housed in North Kern State Prison in Delano, records show.
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