Jacksonville, FL: Another DNA Victory! Cops Arrest Man For The 1998 Murder Of Woman..
Slimpickins
IMO. I'm so glad they arrested this evil monster! Thank goodness for DNA
testing!
Slim
Friday, March 23, 2001
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Parking lot saliva brings murder arrest
Police wanted to find DNA sample
By Caren Burmeister
Times-Union staff writer
Authorities were able to make an arrest in the 1998 fatal stabbing of a
Duval County waitress by scraping the suspect's saliva off a parking lot
after watching him spit, according to records obtained this week.
DNA tests on Robert Erik Denney's saliva matched similar tests on hair and
blood at the victim's apartment in Jacksonville Beach.
The spit was collected last summer outside where Denney, 19, worked in
Easton, Md., and he was arrested Nov. 28.
Denney had been a neighbor of Corey Parker, whose body was found Nov. 26,
1998, in her apartment after she didn't show up for work at Ragtime Tavern
in Atlantic Beach. She had been stabbed 84 times, the state attorney's case
file shows.
The suspect's brother, Patrick Denney, is serving a life sentence in prison
for stabbing an El Paso, Texas, woman at least 100 times in 1990.
Late last year, police in Jacksonville Beach and El Paso were sharing
information about another similar stabbing that occurred in El Paso on May
29, 1999, while Robert Denney was living there with his parents. A woman who
lived nearby was stabbed 107 times, but El Paso authorities recently said
Denney is not a suspect in that case.
Denney, scheduled to go to trial in Duval County on first-degree murder
charges in July, suspected police were watching him last year, according to
interviews and records in the case file, and was meticulous about keeping
cigarette butts and other traces of possible evidence from them.
While doing surveillance on July 26, detectives watched Denney spit on the
ground as he paced and smoked cigarettes outside his employer's back door.
Sgt. Billy Carlyle of the Jacksonville Beach Police Department noted where
the spit fell. When Denney left work, he scraped up the spit and took it to
the FBI lab in Washington.
Police asked for a saliva sample from Denney earlier that day at the Easton
Police Department, but he refused. In addition, Denney never drank from a
bottle of water given to him, kept a cigarette butt after smoking with an
officer and refused to seal an envelope.
"This is the third time you have tried to get me to put my lips on
something, the water, the cigarette and now seal these envelopes," Denney
told the detectives.
Denney's boss, John Garufi, told officers that Denney "became very paranoid"
at work and saved his cigarette butts in a garbage bag and took them home at
night. One time, Garufi's son threw Denney's garbage bag into the trash
outside the shop. Denney flew into a rage and dug through the trash bin
until he found the bag.
Interviews with Parker's friends and neighbors show that she probably never
knew Denney, who had moved into a nearby apartment about a month before the
25-year-old woman was killed. However, Denney's apartment overlooked her
bedroom, kitchen and back door.
Denney was interviewed, along with other neighbors, after Parker's body was
found. But he didn't become a suspect until former co-workers at Barbecue
Ltd in Jacksonville Beach called police about their suspicions in June. By
then, Denney had moved to Maryland where he was working for J&B Computer
Sales and Service.
Denney, the youngest of five children, grew up in El Paso and dropped out of
school in the ninth grade. At first, Denney struck Barbecue Ltd co-worker
Kelly Susnowitz as "a lost soul, a young kid and hard worker who was just
trying to make it in the world."
Denney's roommate, Ron Webber, who also worked at the restaurant, said he
let Denney move in with him "because he had felt sorry for the kid."
Their opinions of him changed in January 1999. Susnowitz said Denney called
her crying and hysterical. She drove him to work and he told her and other
employees that his child had been killed in a car accident in Texas and he
couldn't afford to go home for the funeral. He showed them a baby photograph
in his wallet. Within two days, co-workers raised enough money to pay for
Denney's airfare to Texas.
Susnowitz called Denney's sister in Atlantic Beach about sending flowers.
The sister was puzzled: "What baby? Robert doesn't have a baby."
"I was so furious at him," Susnowitz said. "A lot of good-hearted people
raised $200 or more."
Dane Hough, who also worked at the restaurant, said Denney was sobbing,
shaking and sweating when he told the story.
"We were completely and utterly amazed," Hough said about the lie.
His father, Michael Denney of El Paso, said yesterday his son had struggled
with drugs and alcohol problems from time to time but was not a violent
person.
"My son has absolutely nothing to do with this murder," Denney said in a
telephone interview. "He is not capable of it. Even at the worst of times he
was never violent."
He also questions the saliva's suitability for DNA testing and how
detectives managed to scrape it off what he called a rain-soaked pavement.
Denney's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Patrick McGuinness, declined to
discuss the case.
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/032301/met_5723710.html
billiejo...@gmail.com
Primarily, the state's attorney only base their defense on the fact that Robert's brother killed a woman when he was only 15 . . .
After 18 years, Robert is finally able to tell his side of the story, and they still leave everything out but what was asked about his brother!!!
The REAL MONSTERS are: The real killer and the investigating team and assistant state's attorney Angela Corey!!!