http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ve ... ines-local


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ve ... ines-local

DNA Message In A Bottle Leads To Arrest



By DAVID OWENS
Courant Staff Writer

June 27 2006

VERNON -- Swigs from a water bottle provided police with the crucial evidence they say led to one of two men who robbed two jewelry salesmen who had stopped for a meal in town five years ago.

Fabian Roa, 28, an illegal immigrant from Colombia, was charged Monday with first-degree robbery and first-degree larceny and was arraigned in Superior Court in Rockville. His bail was set at $250,000 but he won't be going anywhere because he is serving an eight-year federal prison sentence in Miami for robbing jewelry wholesalers in Massachusetts.

A Vernon detective's attention to detail while examining the getaway car in the Vernon robbery provided the key bit of evidence that led police to Roa. Det. Steve Sartor swabbed the cap and rim of a Dasani water bottle he found in the center armrest of the Nissan Altima used in the crime that took place in the parking lot of Charlie's Restaurant at 520 Hartford Turnpike in 2001. He also swabbed a straw found in the car.

Technicians at the state police forensic lab recovered a DNA profile and entered it into a national database. That database matched the DNA from the car to a DNA sample taken from Roa. A follow-up DNA analysis confirmed that Roa's DNA was on the water bottle in the car, which was left on Vernwood Drive, according to the warrant for Roa's arrest.

Sartor said he had taken a course on biological evidence at the state lab not too long before the robbery. It was that training that prompted him to swab the bottle and straw for DNA samples.

Lt. John Collins, who heads Vernon's detective bureau, said Sartor's skill as an investigator was key to making an arrest.

"The DNA database at the time was a relatively new thing and a lot of guys weren't thinking along those lines," Collins said. "Now it would be more commonplace, but back then it was a good solid investigative move that maybe a lot of detectives wouldn't have thought of."

And without Sartor's decision to swab the bottle and straw, the case "would have gone unsolved."

After Sartor learned of the DNA hit, he ran Roa's name and learned of the Massachusetts cases. He contacted the FBI in Boston, which took Roa and four other men into custody on similar charges in October 2001.

Roa was arrested by Vernon police Monday, the culmination of a years-long investigation that required obtaining multiple state and federal search warrants and repeated DNA analysis.

Roa, who has several aliases, including Bayron Samuel Badillo, was part of what the U.S. attorney's office in Boston described as a "jewelry heist crew." The men, all illegal immigrants, are suspected in a series of robberies of jewelry wholesalers that netted more than $2 million in the 13 months before their arrests. No such robberies followed their arrests, the U.S. attorney's office said.

FBI agents spotted Roa and others in the crew conducting surveillance on two main jewelry buildings in Boston's jewelry district. An FBI agent went under cover as a jewelry salesman to lure the crew into robbing him. In two separate sting attempts, the men were setting up to rob the undercover agent but then realized it was an FBI sting and fled, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston said.

The second time, agents captured the men as they fled, including Roa.

Roa pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy, two counts of attempted robbery that affected interstate commerce and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. After he is released from federal prison he faces five years of probation and deportation.

The U.S. attorney's office said Roa was also linked to the robbery of two jewelers in Weymouth, Mass., in April 2001. About $300,000 in jewelry was taken in that robbery.

Only one piece of the jewelry stolen in Vernon has been recovered, Sartor said. And Sartor said he continues to seek Roa's accomplice in that heist.

One of the men robbed that day said Monday that he is still haunted by the sight of a man threatening him with a gun.

"When I'm talking with you I'm still shaking," said the man, who lives in New Jersey. "We were shaking all night."

Police are also continuing their investigation into a September 2001 robbery of $2.2 million in jewelry from two salesmen as they left Rein's New York Style Deli Restaurant in Vernon. Five robbers were involved in that heist.

Contact David Owens at dowens@courant.com.
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------