A Connecticut man has been arrested by police and detained on Saturday on a $ 2 million bond in connection with the murder of a teenage girl nearly 17 years ago.
Willie Robinson, 52, is accused of strangling Jessica Keyworth, 16, and her in a basement stairwell of an apartment building just after a Memorial Day Weekend in 2004, according to an American newspaper in Waterbury, Conn. , left behind.
Keyworth took a train to Waterbury that arrived on Memorial Day just before midnight to meet a friend, but she was found murdered in a stairwell the next morning.
“We are so happy that we can bring some closure and justice to the girl’s family,” Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “A lot has to do with a lot of perseverance by the detectives involved in the case.”
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Spagnolo praised the detectives as “peerless”.
The principal did not specify what led investigators to Robinson, but said they were aided by DNA evidence and forensic science, reports FOX 61 in Hartford. It was not clear how she ended up in the stairs.
Willie Robinson. (Waterbury Police)
Investigators searched the city for the Keyworth murder, and even traveled to Las Vegas in 2007 to question the case, but were never arrested.
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Robinson was arrested on an unrelated offense because he only interfered with a police officer a few months after Keyworth’s murder, but it is not clear if he was questioned about her death at the time. Officials did not say whether there was a known connection between Robinson and Keyworth.
Robinson has an arrest record that includes sexual assault and the risk of injury, the newspaper reported, but there were no reports of any convictions.
He is facing one charge of murder.
Police have placed Keyworth’s unsolved case in a specially designed ticket sold to prison inmates that contains cold cases on various cards. Keyworth was the three hearts. The cards led to hundreds of tips in cases, but police did not say whether her card led to Robinson’s arrest.
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The investigation continues and police said the $ 50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction is still available, the newspaper reported.