Chino Valley man held, charged in investigation of rapes in California

A man suspected of a string of sexual assaults between 1996 and 2007 in Riverside County, California, was charged with 16 counts of forcible rape and numerous other felony charges after Arizona law enforcement arrested him in Prescott, authorities announced Wednesday.

Police from the California cities of Corona and Riverside, where the crimes took place, worked with Arizona law enforcement and the FBI to arrest 50-yearold Darin Edward Cooke on May 26 in Prescott.

Cooke had been living in Arizona for several years and was living in Chino Valley at the time of his arrest.

“Mr. Cooke was … a serial rapist, but also extremely violent,” said Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin in a press conference on Wednesday. “Needless to say, our community was terrorized, the victims were terrorized.”

The charges include forcible rape, assault with intent to commit rape, kidnapping with the intent to commit rape, and others; each involved either a knife or handgun. Each of the 16 felony counts could result in a life sentence if convicted.

Yavapai County sheriff ’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said investigators don’t believe Cooke committed any assaults while living in Arizona.

“I am proud of our detectives, as they worked in cooperation with local and federal law enforcement partners to secure the arrest of this suspect,” Yavapai County Sheriff Scott Mascher said. “It is my hope the victims will gain some sense of closure knowing Cooke is in custody and will face justice.”

The cases, the first of which had occurred in 1996, had grown cold until Corona Police Chief George Johnstone began actively looking into them in 2019 and discovered DNA evidence matched two different rapes in Corona and Riverside.

With the help of the FBI, investigators were able to match the DNA from several other sexual assault cases — which had all happened “in close proximity to one another, often in the same apartment complex with a very similar M.O.,” according to Hestrin — to DNA they had collected from Cooke, officials said.

Officials said Cooke had been living in Riverside County at the time of the sexual assaults.

Cooke was extradited to California on Sunday and is being held on $3 million bail. He made his first appearance in court for his arraignment on Wednesday morning.

“The dedication of the detectives that stuck with the case so many years later, I think we have to make special note of that,” said Hestrin. “All these investigators, police departments (came) together to try to get justice for a case that frankly could easily have been forgotten.”