Man charged with Yonkers murder excluded by testing as source of DNA on victim's shirt
The man charged with murder in the 1997 death of his estranged wife in Yonkers has been excluded by forensic testing as the source of DNA found on the T-shirt the victim was wearing.
That revelation was made Thursday in Westchester County Court by the lawyer for Rafael Ramos, who was indicted this year in the cold case slaying of Nusinaida Ramos.
And the prosecution's case may face a further setback after Westchester County Judge George Fufidio said he had concerns about how the case was presented to the grand jury in the spring.
Earlier: Judge sets bail for man accused of killing wife in Yonkers in 1997
Fufidio said he was weighing dismissal of the indictment but would give Assistant District Attorney Daniel Flecha time to address his concerns, which the judge expects to lay out in a letter to prosecutors next week.
He did not detail what the issues were. Defense lawyer Lynda Visco had argued in court papers that the grand jury minutes were full of instances when prosecutors relied on hearsay testimony.
Prosecutors in June obtained the indictment charging Ramos with second-degree murder without waiting to secure his DNA and test it against the evidence found on the T-shirt. The so-called touch DNA was known through advanced testing in the past year to have come from a man. A second T-shirt that was around the victim's neck that prosecutors suspect was used to strangle her had blood on it that matched only the victim's DNA.
The T-shirt was recovered March 10, 1997, the day the body of Nusinaida Ramos was found in the Colin Street apartment she shared with the couple’s two young kids.
She was believed to have been killed there the previous day. According to Yonkers detectives, Rafael Ramos acknowledged at the time that he had briefly been in the apartment with her on March 9 when he went to pick up the kids but insisted he had not harmed her.
Previously: Rafael Ramos account of the day estranged wife was killed detailed in statement to police
A spokeswoman for the Westchester District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the DNA results.
Rafael Ramos, a former state correction officer who lives in Sleepy Hollow, has been free on $1 million bond since the summer. Fufidio on Thursday allowed him to have the electronic monitoring anklet he’d worn for two months removed.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Yonkers NY murder: Suspect excluded by testing as DNA source on shirt
