Bainbridge man's DNA matched to downstate murder case
BAINBRIDGE – A Bainbridge man convicted of petty theft was forced to give a DNA sample to police. On Tuesday, that sample linked him to a 20-year-old Long Island murder.
Joey Bethea, 38, of 6 River St. in Bainbridge, was taken into custody on suspicion of second-degree murder at around 2 p.m. Tuesday after New York State Investigators arrested him at the Wagner-Nineveh sawmill where he worked.
The Nassau County Police Department reported that Bethea’s DNA matched a semen sample taken from the alleged murder victim, 22-year-old Dorothy LeConte. Police said LeConte, a Haitian immigrant, had been raped and murdered on June 14, 1989, when Bethea was 17 and also lived on Long Island.
Police said LeConte’s body was dumped near Hempstead High School and an autopsy later determined she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.
Bethea’s Bainbridge neighbors seemed surprised he had been charged with a murder.
Bethea’s neighbor, who lives in the same two-tenant apartment house, said he “seemed like a nice man and a gentleman.”
“He was a really active guy, always busy with something. He built and sold bird houses, visited with his four year old daughter a lot and seemed like a normal guy,” said neighbor Tim Goebeler.
District Attorney Joseph A. McBride said Bethea’s DNA was added to the state’s databank after he pleaded guilty to stealing a donation can from a local convenience store in Bainbridge court.
“Basically the gentleman was convicted of a crime and submitted his DNA to the state databank and police authorities matched it at the crime lab to an old murder in Long Island,” McBride said.
McBride said police and prosecutors across the state have been pushing to widen those eligible for DNA samples so that it could encompass all criminal offenses, similar to how authorities collect fingerprints.
Bethea was arraigned for the second-degree murder charge in Nassau County Court Wednesday and remanded to the Nassau County jail without bail.
Joey Bethea, 38, of 6 River St. in Bainbridge, was taken into custody on suspicion of second-degree murder at around 2 p.m. Tuesday after New York State Investigators arrested him at the Wagner-Nineveh sawmill where he worked.
The Nassau County Police Department reported that Bethea’s DNA matched a semen sample taken from the alleged murder victim, 22-year-old Dorothy LeConte. Police said LeConte, a Haitian immigrant, had been raped and murdered on June 14, 1989, when Bethea was 17 and also lived on Long Island.
Police said LeConte’s body was dumped near Hempstead High School and an autopsy later determined she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.
Bethea’s Bainbridge neighbors seemed surprised he had been charged with a murder.
Bethea’s neighbor, who lives in the same two-tenant apartment house, said he “seemed like a nice man and a gentleman.”
“He was a really active guy, always busy with something. He built and sold bird houses, visited with his four year old daughter a lot and seemed like a normal guy,” said neighbor Tim Goebeler.
District Attorney Joseph A. McBride said Bethea’s DNA was added to the state’s databank after he pleaded guilty to stealing a donation can from a local convenience store in Bainbridge court.
“Basically the gentleman was convicted of a crime and submitted his DNA to the state databank and police authorities matched it at the crime lab to an old murder in Long Island,” McBride said.
McBride said police and prosecutors across the state have been pushing to widen those eligible for DNA samples so that it could encompass all criminal offenses, similar to how authorities collect fingerprints.
Bethea was arraigned for the second-degree murder charge in Nassau County Court Wednesday and remanded to the Nassau County jail without bail.
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