Rapist Is Sentenced to 36 Years

A 41-year-old Thousand Oaks laborer was sentenced Wednesday to 36 years in prison for raping three local women.

Narcisso Solis pleaded guilty last month to rape, sexual battery and forcible oral copulation in connection with the three assaults.

Solis’ sexual attacks occurred in August 1998, January 2002 and July 2002. His method of operation in the cases was similar, authorities said. He would break into a victim’s home at night when she was expected to be asleep, enter the bedroom and use a knife during the attack.

Although a suspect in two earlier sex crimes in the city dating back to 1990, Solis was not convicted because of a lack of evidence in one case and because of a six-year statute of limitations on the other.

Investigators developed a profile of a then-unknown serial rapist and focused on Solis, who had a history of crimes, including burglary, said Ventura County Deputy Dist. Atty. Ernesto Acosta, who prosecuted the rape cases.

As Solis was being processed for release from jail on charges of drunken driving in August 2002, the Ventura County sheriff’s crime lab returned DNA evidence linking him to the attacks in January and July of that year.