Curtis Batchelor, 41, was arrested 17 years after a woman was raped and killed.
A New York man busted for using a student subway pass has been charged with rape and murder after his DNA matched evidence from a 1999 cold case, authorities said.
Curtis Batchelor, 41, was charged last week with manslaughter, murder, rape and sexual abuse in the stabbing death of 56-year-old Elsa Grullon.
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The woman was found by her son-in-law, who checked Grullon’s Bronx apartment after not seeing her for several days. She had been stabbed multiple times and was covered by a blanket, police said.
After Batchelor’s arrest for fare evasion, police discovered a previous court order for a DNA sample and forced the suspect to give one.
That ordered had stemmed from a drug-selling charge in 2013 to which Batchelor pleaded guilty, police said. But Batchelor did not comply with the demand to submit a sample for New York’s criminal database, authorities said.
Batchelor lived in Grullon’s building at the time of her murder, according to the New York Daily News.
The genetic sample taken after Batchelor’s January subway arrest matched semen specimens taken from Grullon’s body, according to the Bronx County criminal complaint filed against him last week.
He is being held without bail. He has not entered a plea.
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