(BCN) — A Texas man has been arrested in connection with seven kidnappings and sexual assaults between 1994 and 2008, Berkeley police said Friday. Lashay Durisseau was taken into custody Tuesday in the Houston suburb of Richmond, tying together cold cases from Berkeley and Oakland to the Texas cit ies of Richmond and Beaumont, police said on social media. Sex offender kidnapped, assaulted San Jose girl walking to school, police say An untested rape kit from a Berkeley case was tested in 2015 under a grant obtained by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office and found a DNA match to five other cases, police said. A separate grant from the California Department of Justice allowed detectives to process more than 500 cold sexual assault cases in 2020 and 2021. "During that effort, Richmond Police Department, Oakland Police Department and Beaumont (Texas) Police Department identified cases linked to the same suspect" and agreed to let the Berkeley department take the lead in the investigation, police said. The FBI obtained the suspect's DNA for comparison testing, leading to the issuance of an arrest warrant, police said. Copyright © 2026 Bay City News, Inc. ...read more read less