Riverside County CA Sept 14 2010 A former security guard who raped women on and around the UC Riverside campus and robbed a family at knifepoint was sentenced today to 120 years to life in state prison.
Justin Samuel Lowe, 26, was convicted July 16 of one count each of rape, attempted rape, attempted robbery, kidnapping to commit a robbery and annoying a child under 18; three counts each of forced oral copulation and robbery; and two counts of burglary.
The crimes were committed between November 2003 and October 2006.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Harry A. Staley handed down the maximum sentence for each offense.
“I think justice was done in this case, and I’m glad he’s not going to be able to get out and do this again,” said Deputy District Attorney Michael Carney.
Lowe targeted women who were home alone, mostly at night, and in a couple of instances living only a few houses away from him.
He was connected to the crimes via forensics, including DNA matches, and eyewitness identification by several of the victims. It took a Riverside jury one day to come back with verdicts.
Lowe’s first known victim was attacked on Nov. 11, 2003, at her residence in the 2300 block of Prince Albert Drive.
The 33-year-old woman said a masked man broke into her house as she slept in her second-floor bedroom. She testified that he came in with a gun and told her to give him cash. When she told him there was none, the intruder replied he “wasn’t leaving without getting anything,” the witness recalled.
The woman, who broke down on the stand, said that over a 20-minute period, while the man held a gun to her head, she was forced to give him oral sex. She spat evidence from the assault into a trash can, which investigators were able to glean for analysis.
On Nov. 21, 2003, Lowe broke into a home less than a block away and robbed the woman living there. He also groped her and tried to force himself on her, but she screamed and fought back, prompting the defendant to flee, Carney said.
On March 24, 2004, Lowe returned to the same house and attacked a UCR student who had moved in when the previous victim moved out because of her experience, the prosecutor said.
The defendant, wearing a ski mask and carrying a black-and-silver handgun, or possibly a BB pistol that resembled the real thing, forced the victim to perform oral sex, then raped her twice, according to testimony.
On Oct. 3, 2006, Lowe grabbed a student walking near the Bourns College of Engineering and forced her at knifepoint into a women’s bathroom, where he made her copulate him, according to Carney.
Source:www.swrnn.com
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