Francisco Acevedo was convicted in November 2011 of murdering three women in Yonkers, the city just north of New York City, over seven years: Maria Ramos in February 1989, Tawana Hodges in March 1991 and Kimberly Moore in May 1996. Each woman had been strangled. Investigators had long believed one man was responsible, because the three deaths were linked by the way the women were found and by DNA. For about 20 years the DNA had no name attached to it.
The name came from Acevedo himself. In 2009, while he was in a New York state prison on a drunk-driving charge, he applied for parole. The application was optional, and a DNA sample was one of its conditions. His drunk-driving conviction did not require one. When his profile went into the state database, it matched the evidence from all three Yonkers killings. Detectives who had looked at more than 100 possible suspects over the years had never considered him. A Westchester County jury convicted him of the three murders, acquitted him of three rape counts, and in January 2012 a judge sentenced him to 75 years to life. He has said he is innocent.
Maria Ramos was 26 and lived in the Bronx. She was killed on February 5, 1989. At the sentencing in 2012 the Associated Press reported that her daughter had been 3 years old when her mother died.
Tawana Hodges also lived in the Bronx. She was killed on March 28, 1991. Her first name appears as Tawana in the Associated Press reports of the arrest and the verdict and as Tawanda in the CBS New York report of the sentencing. The Associated Press gave her age as 28 in 2010 and 2011 and as 38 in its sentencing story. Her mother attended the sentencing and spoke in court.
Kimberly Moore was 30 and lived in Greenburgh, a town in Westchester County. She was killed on May 24, 1996. Some reports spell her first name Kimberley. Members of her family also spoke at the sentencing.
Little else was reported about the three women's lives. Their families were present in court and spoke at the sentencing.
All three women were killed in Yonkers, and the cases stayed open for years. The Associated Press reported that investigators linked the killings both by the way the women were found and by DNA recovered from each of them. The DNA showed that the same man was involved in all three, but there was no match for it in any database, and police did not know whose it was.
The case passed into the hands of Detective John Geiss, who by 2010 was the only Yonkers police officer working full time on cold cases. Geiss said he had worked on the three killings for "nine long years." Over the years, he said, investigators had examined "way more than 100" other potential suspects. Acevedo was not among them.
Acevedo's path to the database began with a drunk-driving arrest in Suffolk County, on Long Island, where he had most recently been living. He was convicted and, according to WLS-TV, was serving a term of one to three years in prison for driving while intoxicated when the murder charges were filed.
A conviction for drunk driving did not, at that time, require a DNA sample under New York law. But in 2009, while in prison, Acevedo applied for parole, and the application carried a condition that he provide a sample. Reports differ on how to describe that step. Several Associated Press stories say he gave the sample voluntarily, since the parole application itself was optional. CBS New York and Associated Press reports also describe it as a condition of the application. Geiss put it plainly after the sentencing: "He was locked up for DWI, but his DNA wasn't taken for that."
When the profile was entered into the state database, it matched the DNA found on all three women. The match came about 20 years after the first killing. CBS New York reported that Geiss made the match. The Associated Press, reporting the sentencing, said the match delighted the Yonkers cold case detectives.
Acevedo apparently had no idea that detectives were closing in, CBS News reported in April 2010. They arrested him in the upstate prison where he was already serving his drunk-driving sentence. He seemed surprised. "He wasn't very happy to see us," Geiss said.
The Associated Press listed the places he had lived as Westchester County, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Florida and, most recently, Suffolk County. WLS-TV described him as a Yonkers man.
An indictment reported by CBS News on April 23, 2010, charged him with six counts of murder, three of which also alleged rape. At his arraignment Acevedo pleaded not guilty and was remanded without bail. A spokesman for the Westchester County District Attorney's office said only that a "DNA match" had led to the charges. If convicted, the Associated Press reported, he faced the possibility of life in prison without parole.
After the arrest, several police departments in places where Acevedo had lived asked about him in connection with their own unsolved cases.
The case was tried at the Westchester County courthouse in White Plains before Westchester County Judge Barbara Zambelli. The prosecution, led by the office of District Attorney Janet DiFiore, built its case on the DNA.
A forensic expert told the jury that it was statistically impossible for the DNA recovered from each woman to belong to anyone other than Acevedo. A motel clerk testified that he had seen Acevedo with one of the women and had later found her dead.
The defense did not dispute the DNA. Acevedo's lawyers acknowledged that he had had sex with all three women, but denied the rape and murder charges.
The jury reached its verdict on the first day of deliberations. The Associated Press reported the verdict on November 14, 2011. Acevedo, then 43, was found guilty of the murders of Maria Ramos, Tawana Hodges and Kimberly Moore. The jury acquitted him of the three counts of rape.
"The evidence based on DNA testing allowed these three murder victims to point the finger of guilt at this defendant," District Attorney DiFiore said after the verdict.
Acevedo was sentenced on January 17, 2012. Relatives of each of the three women spoke to him in court, and the Associated Press described each family as denouncing him.
Maria Ramos's daughter, who had been 3 when her mother was killed, told him: "I hope you suffer every day of your everlasting life." Tawana Hodges's mother called him "a filthy little animal."
Hodges's mother also spoke to CBS2 reporter Lou Young. She recalled the day Geiss came to her house with the news. "When John came to my home to tell me they had him I was happy," she said.
Acevedo maintained his innocence. He told the court that he had prayed for the women and for their families. The Dominican newspaper Diario Libre reported that he showed no visible emotion when the sentence was read, and that after the judge imposed it he said he was innocent of the charges.
Judge Zambelli called the killings "monstrous crimes by a cruel and inhuman individual." She combined the maximum sentence on each of the three murder counts, for a total of 75 years to life. Diario Libre described the sentence as 25 years to life for each death.
The case arrived in court in the middle of a political argument over New York's DNA databank. The databank had begun in 1996 with people convicted of murder and serious sex crimes and had been expanded several times since, most recently in 2006, according to an Associated Press report in January 2012. Drunk driving was not on the list of crimes that required a sample.
Weeks before Acevedo's sentencing, Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed extending the databank to people convicted of many more crimes, drunk driving among them. Cuomo said that since 1996 the database had led to about 2,700 convictions and helped clear 27 people who had been wrongly accused.
District Attorney DiFiore used the Acevedo case to argue for that change. "This case clearly exemplifies the need for the expansion of New York State's DNA data base," she said at the sentencing.
In March 2012 Cuomo signed a law requiring DNA samples from people convicted of any felony and of any misdemeanor under the state's Penal Law. Its backers described New York as the first "all crimes" DNA state.
After the arrest, Geiss said, police departments in several of the areas where Acevedo had lived were looking at him in connection with their own unsolved cases. No further charge against him was reported in the coverage of his trial and sentencing.
Acevedo has never admitted the killings, and he denied all the charges. The jury convicted him of murder and acquitted him on the rape counts.
The voluntary sample. Many reports describe the parole DNA sample as voluntary. That is accurate only in the sense that the parole application was optional. Once he applied, the sample was a condition of the application.
Ages and spellings. Tawana Hodges is given as 28 in the Associated Press arrest and verdict stories and as 38 in its sentencing story; her first name appears as both Tawana and Tawanda. Kimberly Moore's name appears as both Kimberly and Kimberley. Acevedo's age is given as 43 at the 2011 verdict and the 2012 sentencing.
Origin. Diario Libre described Acevedo as Dominican. The American wire reports of the case do not give his birthplace or nationality.
Other cases. Several police departments asked about Acevedo after his arrest. He has not been charged with or linked by any official to any other killing, and none should be inferred.
As of January 18, 2012, when Diario Libre reported the sentence, Acevedo had been sentenced to 75 years to life and was to serve it in a New York state prison.
February 5, 1989: Maria Ramos, 26, of the Bronx, is killed in Yonkers.
March 28, 1991: Tawana Hodges, of the Bronx, is killed in Yonkers.
May 24, 1996: Kimberly Moore, 30, of Greenburgh, is killed in Yonkers.
Over the following years: DNA links the three deaths to one unknown man; Yonkers detectives examine more than 100 possible suspects.
2009: Serving a prison term after a drunk-driving arrest in Suffolk County, Acevedo applies for parole and gives a DNA sample as a condition of the application. It matches the evidence from all three killings.
2010: Detectives arrest him in an upstate prison. An indictment reported on April 23, 2010, charges six counts of murder, three also alleging rape. He pleads not guilty and is held without bail.
2011: Trial at the Westchester County courthouse in White Plains before Judge Barbara Zambelli.
November 2011: The jury convicts him of the three murders and acquits him of three rape counts on its first day of deliberations.
January 2012: Governor Andrew Cuomo proposes extending the DNA databank to many more crimes, including drunk driving.
January 17, 2012: Sentenced to 75 years to life; relatives of all three women speak; he maintains his innocence.
March 2012: Cuomo signs the "all crimes" DNA law.