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Manhattan DA's Cold Case Squad Makes Its First Arrest
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jul 7, 2011
Modified Jul 7, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jul 7, 2011
Modified Jul 7, 2011
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Manhattan DA Cy Vance at least had a tiny bit of good news, for once, yesterday. The cold case squad he helped create last year has made its first arrest. Investigators say they have linked the 25-year-old murder of Antoinette Bennett—who was found dead in St. Nicholas Park on Nov. 10, 1986—to a Rikers inmate, Steven Carter, who was days away from being released.
Antoinette Bennett, then 26, was found brutally murdered in the Harlem park face down, partially undressed, strangled and "stabbed several times in the face," according to the DA's office.
The squad connected Carter to Bennett's murder by creating a DNA profile of skin samples found under her nails (semen samples found on her body were long gone). That profile led them Carter, whose DNA profile also appears to match semen dried on Bennett's clothing. Carter was in the system as he was previously convicted on a knife possession charge in 2006—he was set to be released from Rikers on July 13.
Still, this won't exactly be a open-and-close case for the DA with just DNA evidence. A lawyer for Carter insists he never met the victim (whose family always suspected an ex-boyfriend) and points out he lived in a different part of the city at the time of her death. Further, she "cited the acquittal of Florida mom Casey Anthony as proof that jurors need more than DNA to convict for murder."
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