Ex-con busted by DNA match for 1994 slaying of Harlem mother and daughter held without bail
The man busted for the brutal 1994 double murder of an ailing Harlem mom and her special-needs daughter was ordered held without bail in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.
Larry Atkinson, 64, was charged with second-degree murder for strangling 57-year-old Sarah Roberts and her 25-year-old daughter Sharon Roberts in their bedrooms inside their Grant Houses apartment on W. 125th St., cops said.
At the time, Atkinson had been dating the family’s home health care aide, who found the pair dead on Feb. 20, 1994, according to police sources.
The aide found the mother on a bed in one room and the daughter in a second bedroom, a woolen stocking wrapped around her neck.
DNA evidence recovered from the scene did not initially link to any suspect.
But when an NYPD cold case detective resubmitted the DNA evidence for testing last year, fingernail scrapings from Sarah’s nails, and a dry secretion swab from Sharon’s hand matched Atkinson’s profile in the state DNA database, according to the criminal complaint.
Celeste Cornelius, 65, the home health care aide who discovered the pair dead nearly 30 years ago, insisted Atkinson didn’t do it.
“He’s a good guy. He’s a good guy,” she previously told the Daily News. “He didn’t. I know he didn’t. I don’t care nothing about DNA — none of that mess. He didn’t do it.”
Atkinson denied any wrongdoing when cops arrested him on Monday.
He is set to return to court on Friday.
The suspected killer, has three aliases, and a long rap sheet, with 28 arrests, and five stints in state prison. Among his many convictions were drug sale, attempted robbery and assault, records show.
With Molly Crane-Newman and Rocco Parascandola
