Worcester man indicted in slaying of Princeton jogger
A Worcester man arrested in April for the killing of a 27-year-old woman in Princeton last summer has been indicted by a grand jury, officials said yesterday.
Prosecutors said a grand jury has indicted Angelo Colon-Ortiz, 31, for murder in the death of Vanessa Marcotte based in part on his DNA profile, which matched samples recovered from Marcotte’s hands.
Colon-Ortiz, who remains in custody on $10 million bail, will be arraigned later in Worcester Superior Court, according to a statement issued by Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.
Marcotte, a Boston University graduate who had been working as an account manager at Google in New York City, didn’t return from a jog near her mother’s house in Princeton on Aug. 7, and her body was later found in the woods less than a mile from the home.
Colon-Ortiz, a married father of three, had no criminal record and worked in Princeton at the time of the murder, prosecutors said.
For eight months, investigators worked to develop a profile of the suspect from DNA found on Marcotte’s hands and probed reports of a black SUV that had been spotted near the scene of the crime. Authorities say an alert state trooper who stopped Colon-Ortiz while he was driving in Worcester provided a break in the case, when a DNA sample taken from him came back as a match for the sample found on Marcotte’s hands.
Colon-Ortiz was arraigned in Leominster District Court on charges of aggravated assault and battery and attempt to rape. Prosecutors say those charges will be dismissed and he will now face a murder charge.