IAPE Evidence Blog

The Mer­cury, a Jour­nal Reg­is­ter Prop­erty, pottsmerc.com
BYLINE: Carl Hessler Jr., chessler@journalregister.com
Link to Article

Mont­gomery County, PA

NORRISTOWN – A cig­a­rette butt left behind by a Lim­er­ick bur­glar was the smok­ing gun that led to a Philadel­phia man’s con­vic­tion for the crime.

James Fran­cis DePaul, 26, of Lawn­dale Avenue, was con­victed Wednes­day by a Mont­gomery County jury of charges of bur­glary, crim­i­nal tres­pass and theft by unlaw­ful tak­ing in con­nec­tion with the Dec. 17, 2008, break-in at a home on Metka Road in Limerick.

The jury reached the ver­dict after hear­ing tes­ti­mony that DePaul’s DNA was dis­cov­ered on a cig­a­rette butt that Lim­er­ick police found at the scene of the bur­glary, appar­ently left behind by DePaul.

At the time of the bur­glary, which net­ted DePaul $200 in cash, DePaul was actu­ally resid­ing in a halfway house in Philadel­phia under pre-release sta­tus in con­nec­tion with a pre­vi­ous state prison sen­tence he was serv­ing for a 2004 Abing­ton con­ve­nience store rob­bery dur­ing which he stole cigarettes.

“I think it’s safe to say that smok­ing has taken years off Mr. DePaul’s life, espe­cially when he con­tin­ues to com­mit crimes in Mont­gomery County,” said Assis­tant Dis­trict Attor­ney John Walko, who vowed to seek prison time against DePaul for the Lim­er­ick crime.

“I’m happy with the jury’s ver­dict. I believe they reached the right result, no ifs, ands, or buts, well maybe one but, a cig­a­rette butt,” Walko added.

As jurors were polled indi­vid­u­ally by court clerk Kevin Frankel, sev­eral mem­bers of DePaul’s fam­ily wept with each “guilty” ver­dict that was announced.

Judge Steven T. O’Neill, who presided over the two-day trial, imme­di­ately revoked DePaul’s bail, while empha­siz­ing that DePaul com­mit­ted the bur­glary while in a state Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions’ pre-release pro­gram for his 2004 rob­bery conviction.

“This defen­dant also has a his­tory of vio­lent crimes. Fur­ther release would be a risk,” said O’Neill as sheriff’s deputies slapped hand­cuffs on DePaul’s wrists for the trip to jail.

DePaul, who was rep­re­sented by defense lawyer Andres Jalon, faces a pos­si­ble max­i­mum sen­tence of 14 ½ to 29 years in prison on the charges.

An inves­ti­ga­tion of DePaul began on Dec. 17, 2008, when the Metka Road home­owner returned home to find that his home had been bur­glar­ized. The res­i­dent dis­cov­ered $200 in cash was taken.

Author­i­ties dis­cov­ered a cig­a­rette butt on the liv­ing room floor, near a lap­top com­puter that had been moved by the bur­glar, accord­ing to the arrest affi­davit filed by Lim­er­ick Detec­tive Ernie Mor­ris. The inves­ti­ga­tion deter­mined that no one who resided in the home smoked.

“The cig­a­rette butt was col­lected and sub­mit­ted for evi­dence,” Mor­ris wrote in the crim­i­nal com­plaint, explain­ing state police foren­sic sci­en­tists were able to extract DNA from the cigarette.

Trial tes­ti­mony revealed a DNA mix­ture from two peo­ple was obtained from the cig­a­rette. Walko, rely­ing on tests con­ducted by foren­sic sci­en­tists, argued DePaul was the major con­trib­u­tor to that DNA mix­ture profile.

“It’s hard to argue with DNA evi­dence and it was only the DNA evi­dence that was really link­ing him to this crime. But again, it was very strong, com­pelling evi­dence,” Walko said. “Essen­tially, there was more of the defendant’s DNA on the cigarette.”

Defense lawyers unsuc­cess­fully implied to the jury that the uniden­ti­fied sec­ond per­son whose DNA was dis­cov­ered in the mix­ture on the cig­a­rette was actu­ally the burglar.

DePaul did not tes­tify dur­ing the trial; how­ever, his lawyers implied that DePaul had left the halfway house to attend a class at a Philadel­phia tech­ni­cal school and could not have com­mit­ted the burglary.

In Decem­ber 2004, DePaul was sen­tenced to 4 ½ to nine years in state prison after he pleaded guilty to a rob­bery charge in con­nec­tion with an April 13, 2004, holdup at the Sunoco A-Plus Mini Mart on Town­ship Line Road in Abing­ton. DePaul pointed a knife at the cashier and demanded money from the cash reg­is­ter, police said.

DePaul made off with about $79 in cash and a cou­ple packs of cig­a­rettes dur­ing the rob­bery, court doc­u­ments indicate.

Fol­low Carl Hessler Jr. on Twit­ter @MontcoCourtNews

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

CBSNEWS, cbsnews.com

Port­land, ME

(AP) PORTLAND, Maine — A 55-year-old Maine man was arrested Wednes­day and charged with mur­der­ing a woman 31 years ago some­time after she left a bar in a neigh­bor­ing town.

Jay Mercier was arrested at his home in the small west­ern Maine town of Indus­try and charged with mur­der in the death of Rita St. Peter, who was 20 when she was found dead along the side of a road in Anson on July 5, 1980.

Offi­cials are not releas­ing details sur­round­ing St. Peter’s death or what specif­i­cally led them to Mercier. Offi­cials wouldn’t release the cause of death in 1980 either, but a 1990 Ban­gor Daily News story on the case said she had a frac­tured skull, was severely beaten and was run over by a vehicle.

The pre­vi­ous old­est cold case in Maine that resulted in an arrest occurred in 1983, when Judith Flagg was mur­dered in Fayette. Thomas Mitchell Jr., of South Port­land, was arrested 23 years after her death and later con­victed and sen­tenced to life in prison.

“The length of time of this case illus­trates that unsolved homi­cides never close,” said Maine State Police spokesman Steve McCausland.

Mercier has been employed as a laborer for most of his life, was divorced and was liv­ing with his girl­friend when he was arrested, police said. He has sev­eral crim­i­nal con­vic­tions on his record, includ­ing some for dri­ving under the influ­ence, said Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­eral Andrew Ben­son, who is pros­e­cut­ing the case.

Mercier will likely make his ini­tial court appear­ance in Som­er­set County Supe­rior Court next week. A pub­lic defender will be appointed to rep­re­sent him, Ben­son said. Pros­e­cu­tors will ask that Mercier be held with­out bail.

St. Peter had been drink­ing in a bar in Madi­son on July 4, 1980, and was last seen some­time after mid­night cross­ing a bridge over the Ken­nebec River from Madi­son to Anson, a town of about 2,500 95 miles north of Port­land, accord­ing to a Maine State Police state­ment. At the time, she was stay­ing with friends in Anson and work­ing at Ken’s Fam­ily Drive-In, a restau­rant in Skowhegan.

She was found the next morn­ing on the side of a nearby coun­try road.

St. Peter is sur­vived by a daugh­ter, who was 3 at the time of her death, and a half-sister, police said.

A grand jury indicted Mercier ear­lier this month, but McCaus­land declined to spec­ify what sort of evi­dence pointed toward Mercier or whether he was iden­ti­fied through DNA.

“We aren’t get­ting into specifics other than we used tech­nol­ogy at the crime lab,” he said.

At the Anson town offices, Town Clerk Carol Ryan said peo­ple in town were shocked when St. Peter was killed. Her fam­ily was well-known in town, and Ryan’s own daugh­ter was just a cou­ple of years behind St. Peter in school.

Towns­peo­ple were talk­ing fol­low­ing Mercier’s arrest, she said.

“It’s got every­body curi­ous on how do they solve some­thing that was that long ago,” Ryan said.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Bal­ti­more Sun, baltimoresun.com
BYLINE: Peter Her­mann, The Bal­ti­more Sun, peter.hermann@baltsun.com
Link to Article

Bal­ti­more, MD

Sus­pect was out on bail on bur­glary charge at the time

A cig­a­rette butt dis­carded out­side the front door of a mur­der victim’s North­east Bal­ti­more home led detec­tives to a sus­pect, who has now been charged with stab­bing a 91-year-old woman dur­ing a burglary.

“The way we closed this case was right out of a scene from ‘CSI,’” city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Fri­day, refer­ring to the pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion series that focuses on solv­ing crimes through high-tech foren­sic techniques.

“We’re very pleased,” said Irene Ushry, the daugh­ter of the vic­tim, Irene Logan, who lived on Moravia Road. “It hasn’t been easy. It gives us some peace of mind now that they’ve arrested someone.”

Police said DNA taken from the cig­a­rette matched the genetic fin­ger­print of Anthony Robin­son, a 45-year-old who also lived in North­east Bal­ti­more, near Lake Mon­te­bello. “That was our lucky break,” said Bal­ti­more police Col. Jesse Oden, who heads the Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Division.

At the time of the killing, Robin­son was free on $25,000 bail, await­ing trial on charges that he bur­glar­ized a house on Frank­ford Avenue in North­east Bal­ti­more. In that case, police respond­ing to an alarm con­fronted the sus­pect, who was hid­ing in the attic, and arrested him after the ceil­ing col­lapsed and he fell into front bed­room, accord­ing to the report from the July incident.

Police said Robinson’s DNA, which was used to com­pare to the DNA found at the scene of the slay­ing, was col­lected after that arrest. His trial in the Frank­ford Avenue bur­glary is sched­uled for Oct. 25. A police report says a gold bracelet, a gold pin and a gold watch were taken.

A woman who answered the phone at Robinson’s house in the 1900 block of East 30th St. would not give her name and hung up.

Robin­son was charged early Fri­day with first-degree mur­der, two counts of assault, rob­bery and theft. He was ordered held with­out bail and could have a hear­ing on Mon­day. Police said he was arrested Fri­day at his girlfriend’s house in North­west Bal­ti­more, where they said they found two watches and a ring belong­ing to the victim.

At a news con­fer­ence Fri­day after­noon, attended by the lead homi­cide detec­tive, Gary Nie­der­meier, and sev­eral mem­bers of the com­mand staff, author­i­ties said that the motive for the killing was bur­glary and that the sus­pect has no con­nec­tion to the vic­tim. Police said they are look­ing at other bur­glar­ies in the area to see if there are any similarities.

Ushry had found her mother’s body on the after­noon of Aug. 3 on the floor of a small kitchen. She said a first-floor bed­room had been rum­maged through but saw no signs of a forced entry. The vic­tim had moved to Bal­ti­more as a small child. She and her hus­band, who died in 1999, had been mar­ried for 50 years. She loved church and dancing.

Logan’s son, Bill, is a com­mu­nity activist who knows Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and had worked to set up National Night Out Against Crime events in his Mid-Govans neigh­bor­hood just two days before the killing. The mayor had attended the event.

Police charg­ing doc­u­ments reveal new infor­ma­tion about the killing. Items that were taken included cos­tume jew­elry, watches, a portable CD player, a check­book and a Home Depot card. The doc­u­ments also say that Logan was stabbed, stran­gled and beaten so badly that her back was broken.

Police said detec­tives con­sid­ered the cig­a­rette butt at the crime scene unusual because no one in the house smoked. It’s unclear when it was dis­carded, and police did not dis­close how the intruder got inside the house or whether they found a weapon.

The Police Department’s Trace Analy­sis Unit obtained DNA from the cig­a­rette, and matched it to sam­ples recov­ered from under the victim’s fin­ger­nails, indi­cat­ing a pos­si­ble strug­gle. They also matched the DNA to sam­ples taken from other items inside the house and from the suspect.

Guglielmi, the city police spokesman, described Robin­son as a “career crim­i­nal” with mul­ti­ple arrests on drug and rob­bery charges. He has few con­vic­tions, though, includ­ing two for drug pos­ses­sion: in 2007, for which got a sus­pended one-year jail term; and in 2009, for which he spent one month in jail. He also was sen­tenced to four years in prison for auto theft in 2005.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org