Prosecutors announced an arrest Saturday in last summer’s brutal murder of a New York City Google manager who was out jogging in rural Massachusetts when she was killed.
“We got him,” Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said in announcing the arrest of Angel Colon Ortiz, 31, of Worcester, in connection with the murder of 27-year-old Vanessa Marcotte in Princeton, Massachusetts, on Aug. 7.
Early said investigators obtained DNA of Marcotte’s killer because of the fight she put up before she was killed.
Recently, a state trooper spotted Ortiz in a dark SUV. The trooper knew that detectives assigned to the Marcotte case were looking for a dark SUV and a Hispanic man, the prosecutor said.
The trooper wrote down the SUV’s license plate on his hand. A day later he showed up at the home where Ortiz lived. Ortiz agreed to provide a saliva sample containing DNA.
Early said the DNA match came back Friday. Ortiz was picked up early Saturday.
“We’re very confident we have Vanessa Marcotte’s killer,” he said.
The prosecutor said Ortiz worked in Princeton near where Marcotte was killed. He declined to say where Ortiz worked or what he did.
Early said Ortiz was jailed on charges of aggravate assault, battery, and aggravated assault with intent to rape.
He said he anticipates that Ortiz will be charged with murder.
Marcotte’s naked body was found a day after she left her mother’s house to go jogging and disappeared. Police believe the woman was strangled, and her hands and feet set on fire.
Investigators discovered the body in a wooded area not far from the home of Marcotte’s mother.
Prosecutors said in February that based on a DNA profile the killer was believed to be a Hispanic or Latino man with an athletic build who is about 30 years old, the station reported.
Investigators received more than 1,300 tips in the case.
The DNA sequence matched to Ortiz occurs only once in about 1.1 quintillion sequences, Early said according to Fox 25 Boston. He said that is why investigators are so sure they’ve found the killer.
Authorities have arrested a man suspected of killing Vanessa Marcotte, a 27-year-old Google employee who went out for a jog one afternoon and never came back.
Angelo Colon-Ortiz, 31, has been charged with aggravated assault and battery and assault with attempt to rape, Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. announced Saturday. Early told reporters during a news conference that a murder charge is expected to be filed.
“We got him,” Early told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “We’re very comfortable that we’ve got Vanessa Marcotte’s killer.”
The arrest comes eight months after Marcotte’s body was found about half a mile from her mother’s house in Princeton, Mass., where she was visiting for the weekend. The health-care account manager for Google was last seen about 1 p.m. Aug. 7. Massachusetts State Police K-9 teams discovered her body in a wooded area later that night, the Boston Globe reported.
Investigators have received more than 1,300 tips from the public, but a break in the case happened after a state police trooper spotted a dark sport-utility vehicle driven by a man who matched the suspect’s description, according to the district attorney’s office.
The trooper wrote the license plate number on his hand and later tracked down the man’s address. The trooper went to the man’s home in Worcester, Mass., not far from Princeton. There, Colon-Ortiz provided the officer with a DNA sample, the district attorney’s office said.
The DNA matched a sample taken from Marcotte’s hands. Police believe that Marcotte fought her attacker, scratching his face, neck and arms, the AP reported.
“It’s through her determined fight and her efforts that we obtained the DNA of her killer,” Early told reporters.
Colon-Ortiz is being held on a $10 million bail and will have his first court hearing on Tuesday.
[She went for a jog and never came home. Six months later, police may have found her killer.]
Numerous local outlets — including the Boston Globe, the Telegram and Gazette and Boston’s ABC affiliate — cited police sources as saying there are indications that Marcotte’s body was burned.
Marcotte’s Instagram feed depicted someone who loved the New England Patriots, Boston and the beach.
She died about a year and a half after she started a job at Google in New York. A Google spokesman had confirmed Marcotte’s employment in an emailed statement to The Washington Post.
“Vanessa Marcotte was a much loved member of the Google team, working in our New York office for the last year and a half, and known for her ubiquitous smile, passion for volunteer work, and love of Boston sports,” the statement said. “We are deeply shocked and saddened and our thoughts are with her family and friends.”
According to her LinkedIn profile, Marcotte graduated from Boston University in 2011, stayed in the Boston area for several years and worked at WordStream, an online advertising company, and Vistaprint.