Thread: DNA Ties IA Suspect to 1997 Colo. Slaying

DNA Ties Suspect to 1997 Colo. Slaying
By IVAN MORENO

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A man tied by DNA to the 1997 death of a University of Colorado senior appeared in court Monday to face charges of murder, kidnapping and sexual assault in the once-cold case.

Diego Olmos-Alcalde, 38, who was arrested over the weekend on a parole violation, was being held at the Boulder County jail in lieu of $5 million bail.

He watched the court proceedings through a window from an adjacent room and said nothing audible during the brief session, in which he was formally advised of the charges.

His public defender declined to comment after the proceedings.

Police learned last week that DNA from the case matched a profile recently entered into a national database by authorities in Wyoming, where Olmos-Alcalde had served time for a kidnapping in 2000.

He was arrested Saturday at his mother's home in a Denver suburb on a parole violation charge. While in jail, he was arrested in the death of Susannah Chase, a 23-year-old from Stamford, Conn., who was beaten to death with a baseball bat and left for dead in December 1997. She died later of her injuries.

Police have said they believe the attack was random. In recent years, as forensic science was enhanced, detectives focused on DNA found in seminal fluid in Chase's body.

When confronted about the homicide with a photo of Chase, Olmos-Alcalde denied knowing who she was and said he hadn't been to Boulder since he was 16, according to an arrest warrant affidavit released Monday.

He repeatedly denied hurting Chase, even as detectives told him they found his DNA on her, according to the court record.

Olmos-Alcalde had not previously come up as a possible suspect, Police Chief Mark Beckner said. He said the DNA was a key piece of evidence leading to the arrest, but investigators also used other information, which he declined to disclose.

"As you might imagine, our emotions have run the gamut since we first heard of the DNA match with Susannah's case," parents Hal and Julie Chase said in a written statement. "We are delighted that a suspect has been identified and apprehended."

Olmos-Alcalde had been arrested at least three other times on sex-related charges, with two of those arrests occurring after Chase's death, according to the affidavit.

In one 1998 case, Olmos-Alcalde pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed weapon, and prosecutors dropped a charge of attempted sexual assault, said Lynn Kimbrough, a spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney. It wasn't known whether he served time in jail or what the outcomes of the other two cases were.

In the Wyoming case, police in Cheyenne said Olmos-Alcalde followed a woman in her car to her apartment complex and blocked her car with his vehicle after she parked.

The woman had managed to honk her car horn several times before Olmos-Alcalde dragged her from her car, alerting her brother and sister, who went to help her, police said. Olmos-Alcalde fled in his car, but the victim and her siblings identified him as her attacker.

Olmos-Alcalde, who is from Chile, was released from prison in Wyoming last year and was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. They ordered him to report to Wyoming officials to continue his parole requirements.

A warrant for his arrest was issued in October when he did not report as ordered, the affidavit said.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ieI6 ... AD8UF82FO1

'PERV' HELD IN RAPE-SLAY
Colorado murder suspect had sex charges in Union City
Tuesday, January 29, 2008

BOULDER, Colo. - The man arrested Sunday and charged with the 1997 rape and beating death of a Colorado college student had been charged with criminal sexual contact in Union City in 1995 and skipped out on his court hearing, police said.

Diego Olmos-Alcalde, 38, is being held on $5 million bail on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and first-degree assault in the rape and killing of 23-year-old Susannah Chase of Stamford, Conn., Colorado police said yesterday.

Two years before that murder, Olmos-Alcalde was arrested in Union City after grabbing a woman's buttocks, Union City Police Chief Charles Everett said.

At the time, Olmos-Alcalde had been living on the 5500 block of Bergenline Avenue in West New York. On Feb. 18, 1995, Olmos-Alcalde was walking on Central Avenue near Seventh Street just before 8 a.m. when he grabbed the buttocks of a 44-year-old woman he didn't know, Everett said. The woman screamed, and a nearby police officer responded and arrested Olmos-Alcalde.

Although "on the face of it it seems like a relatively minor incident," said Everett, if the officer had not been right in the area when the person screamed, the crime could have become more serious.

Olmos-Alcalde was initially charged with criminal sexual contact, but records indicate that the charge was amended to simple assault and moved to municipal court, Everett said. Olmos-Alcalde was released on a bail of $2,500 but never showed up for his court date.

Everett said he did not see any arrests for Olmos-Alcalde in a New Jersey police database prior to 1995. If Olmos-Alcalde in fact had no prior arrests, it is unlikely that he would have received any prison time for the offense, even if he hadn't skipped bail, Everett said.

Colorado police were able to tie Olmos-Alcalde to Chase's murder using a DNA match and other evidence, police said. "The department is ecstatic over this," police Chief Mark Beckner said Sunday.

Including the Union City arrest, Olmos-Alcalde has been arrested at least three other times on sex-related charges, with two of those arrests occurring after Chase's death, according to an arrest warrant affidavit released yesterday.

Olmos-Alcalde was also arrested on a charge of first-degree sexual assault in Denver on Jan. 1, 1998, and again two weeks later on the same charge but following a different incident, the affidavit said. The outcomes of those cases were not immediately known.

Olmos-Alcalde, who is from Chile, went to prison in Wyoming for a kidnapping in 2000 and was released to immigration officials in July 2007, police said.

AMY SARA CLARK
http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.s ... xml&coll=3