Advanced DNA Technology Linked Defendant to the Killing; DNA on His Cigarette Butt and Under Victim’s Nails Matched
Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that an Ohio man has been indicted for the 2005 fatal stabbing of his ex-girlfriend after advancements in DNA technology linked him to her murder.
District Attorney Clark said, “The defendant thought he successfully escaped responsibility for this heinous act. Thanks to the forensic expertise and the determination of investigators, he now faces justice. My prosecutor told the victim’s daughter that her mother’s alleged killer was finally charged in court, and she said “…You have no idea what you have done for us. I have no words.’”
District Attorney Clark said the defendant, James Devore, 54, of Mansfield Ohio, was arraigned today by Bronx Supreme Court Justice George Villegas on second-degree Murder, first-degree Manslaughter and fourth-degree Criminal Possession of a Weapon. He was remanded and is due back in court on June 18, 2024.
According to the investigation, Erica Robertson, 29, had been in an intimate relationship with Devore until 2004. On the evening of Tuesday, November 22, 2005, the victim along with her daughter and Devore’s daughter were in an apartment in 1246 Grant Avenue, in the Bronx. The next morning the victim’s daughter entered her mother’s bedroom and found her bloody body on the floor and a work glove nearby. The victim had been stabbed in the chest.
After the incident the defendant moved to Ohio. In early December of 2005, detectives from the 44th Precinct interviewed him there and afterwards secured a discarded cigarette butt.
In 2022 the victim’s nails were located, tested and compared to the evidence in the case. Testing revealed that there was male DNA on her fingernails and that it matched the DNA on the cigarette butt and the glove. It was due to the advances in DNA over the last 18 years that the lab was able to achieve this result.
The grand jury voted an indictment on May 22, 2024. The defendant was brought into custody on May 29, 2024, by U.S. Marshals in Ohio and NYPD detectives brought him to the Bronx on June 5, 2024. In 2005, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner’s Department of Forensic Biology examined the cigarette butt and the glove recovered in the case. They were able to develop DNA profiles. In July of 2020 the Cold Case Unit of the NYPD revived the investigation.
District Attorney Clark thanked the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, Department of Forensic Biology for their work in the case.
An indictment is an accusatory instrument and not proof of a defendant’s guilt.
No comments:
Post a Comment