Man Is Charged in Rape and Murder of Neighbour

 An apartment building in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium where Elsa Grullon was found dead with multiple stab wounds in her bedroom nearly two decades ago.

56-year-old Elsa Grullon was found on her bedroom floor, bleeding after being stabbed repeatedly. She was found by her son-in-law, the superintendent of the apartment building where she lived in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium, on May 27, 1999. Emergency medical technicians arrived and pronounced her dead.

On Monday, the police arrested a 41 year old Curtis Batchelor, the man that they say raped and killed Ms. Grullon. The authorities said that Mr. Batchelor’s DNA matched that left at the crime scene.

Mr. Batchelor, who lived in the same building as Ms. Grullon at the time of the murder, was arraigned on Tuesday in Bronx Criminal Court charges of first-degree murder, rape and sexual assault, the authorities said. His lawyer, Alice Fontier of the Bronx Defenders, said that he pleaded not guilty.

The breakthrough in the case came in March 2016, the police said. they said the connection emerged through the medical examiner’s office, which is in charge of the city’s database of DNA samples taken from offenders. 

Patrice M. O’Shaughnessy, a spokeswoman for Darcel D. Clark, the Bronx district attorney, said that Mr. Batchelor’s DNA was taken sometime after an arrest in January 2016 and was matched to that found at the crime scene. According to a criminal complaint filed in court, the police said that his sperm was found in Ms. Grullon’s body. 

In a statement, Alice Fontier said that, “There has been no evidence produced in this case, nor anything tested in court, to support the dangerous assumption that DNA is foolproof and has confirmed the identity of Mr. Batchelor as the perpetrator of these crimes.”

On Wednesday, at the six-story brick apartment building on Gerard Avenue where the crime occurred, a resident, Jenobeba Lado, 87, said that she remembered sobbing as she watched detectives take Ms. Grullon’s body from the apartment.

Residents said that Mr. Batchelor used to live with his mother, who they said still lives in the building and takes care of Mr. Batchelor’s children

Mr. Batchelor moved to the building from his native Antigua when he was around 9 years old, said Elizabeth Davis, who described herself as a distant cousin and who lives at the same building. 

She said that she knew of no contact between Mr. Batchelor and Ms. Grullon and never suspected him in the killing.

 © David Dee Delgado for The New York Times