DNA helps police make arrest in home invasion

A DNA match was made from a cigarette butt left at the crime scene.

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — A DNA match is part of the evidence supporting the indictment of a Campbell man in the invasion of a woman’s Canfield Township home more than a year ago, the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department said.

Rickie Gonzalez, 44, of 12th Street, was released on his own recognizance on electronically monitored house arrest at his Tuesday arraignment before Magistrate Dennis J. Sarisky of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Sarisky found Gonzalez indigent and appointed Atty. Thomas Zena to represent him.

The Mahoning County grand jury indicted Gonzalez on Thursday on kidnapping, robbery and aggravated-burglary charges with repeat-violent-offender specifications.

Gonzalez forced his way into the woman’s South Raccoon Road residence at about 6 p.m. Sept. 27, 2007, restrained her and robbed her of $380, a digital camera and a laptop computer, said Detective Dave Benigas of the sheriff’s department.

Gonzalez grabbed the victim around the neck and dragged her around her house as he searched for money and items he could steal, Benigas said.

The slightly injured victim, who is in her 70s, had bruises on her neck and arms from being choked, but she declined to go to the hospital, he added.

As the robber fled, the victim obtained a description of his vehicle.

The sheriff’s department retrieved a cigarette butt at the scene and submitted it to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, which matched the DNA on it to Gonzalez, Benigas said.

Further investigation determined that Gonzalez no longer resided at the New Jersey location authorities had listed for him and that he had moved to Campbell.

The sheriff’s department obtained a search warrant for Gonzalez’s DNA, which matched the DNA on the cigarette butt found at the robbery scene, Benigas said.

The repeat-violent-offender specifications in the indictment refer to Gonzalez’s July 1996 aggravated-robbery conviction in Hudson County, N.J.