DNA From Under Victim’s Fingernails Matched Defendant
Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Bronx man has been indicted for second-degree Murder in the 1996 strangling death of a pregnant woman after his DNA was recently matched to DNA found under the victim’s fingernails.
District Attorney Clark said, “Forensic experts were able to match the DNA from the defendant with the victim who was strangled and killed in her home with her 5-year-old son present. Investigators never gave up on getting justice for her, and her alleged killer is now being held accountable.”
District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Gregory Fleetwood, 66, last of 3507 Laconia Avenue, was arraigned on September 6, 2022 on second-degree Murder before Bronx Supreme Court Justice George Villegas. The defendant was remanded and is due back in court on September 16, 2022.
According to the investigation, on February 5, 1996, inside of 1706 Davidson Avenue in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx, the defendant allegedly choked Jasmine Porter, 36, to death in her apartment. Porter’s 5-year-old son was in the home and was alone with her body for two days before it was discovered. DNA was recovered from under the victim’s fingernails. Recently the investigation matched that evidence with Fleetwood’s DNA, using technology that wasn’t available in 1996.
Fleetwood had a previous conviction for strangling another pregnant woman in the Bronx in 1987.
District Attorney Clark thanked Lieutenant Sean O’ Toole and Detective Robert Klein of NYPD Bronx Homicide, and the Office of Chief Medical Examiner Forensic Biology Department, for their work in the investigation.
An indictment is an accusatory instrument and not proof of a defendant’s guilt.
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