Search This Blog

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Sarah Fox cold case: DNA from Occupy protest linked to '04 slay


In a bizarre twist to a cold case, detectives have matched DNA found at the scene of Juilliard student Sarah Fox’s 2004 murder to genetic material on a chain seized at an Occupy Wall Street protest earlier this year, law enforcement sources said.

The first DNA sample was obtained from Fox’s pink CD player, found in the brush not far from her body in Inwood Hill Park.

Police had not found any matches to DNA collected from other investigations for eight years.

But now they have.

DNA collected from a chain an OWS protester left at the Beverley Road subway station in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on March 28 is a match to the material found on the CD player, the sources said.

The masked protester used the chain to hold open emergency gates. Demonstrators at Beverley Road and eight other stations also taped turnstiles and put up flyers urging riders to travel for free.

The NYPD is now scrambling to identify who left the chain behind, since no arrests were made at the time of the March incidents.

Once they have a name, detectives can determine if the DNA hit is a real break in the case or if there’s an innocent explanation for the connection, which was first reported by NBC/Channel 4.

The nude body of Fox, 21, was found six days after she went for a run in the uptown Manhattan park. She had been strangled.

Prosecutors initially said the top suspect in the case was Dimitry Sheinman, 47, a handyman who went to detectives claiming to have information about the case he obtained clairvoyantly.

He was never charged and eventually moved to South Africa.

Last month, he returned to New York, and, accompanied by his wife, Jane, walked into the 34th Precinct stationhouse in Manhattan carrying a sealed envelope.

He said it contained the name of the murderer.

He told cops the name came to him in a psychic vision.

Sheinman did not respond to an email request for comment Tuesday night.

No comments:

Post a Comment