Man Arrested In Connection With Assault

A convicted Connecticut sexual offender is being arraigned this morning on a fugitive from justice charge in connection with the murder and sexual assault 10 years ago of an 11-year-old girl in Florida, Connecticut authorities said.

Robert S. Mitchell, 43, of 8 Kelsey St., New Britain, was arrested Wednesday afternoon on the fugitive charge in connection with the death of Cherie Morrisette, whose body was found in the St. Johns River on Dec. 8, 1996.

The girl had gone missing after leaving her apartment complex six days after her mother told police she had run away from home.

Mitchell will be arraigned in Superior Court in New Britain, and then will be taken back to Florida to face the murder charge, police said.

The case would have gone unsolved if it weren't for a routine DNA sample taken from Mitchell after he was convicted of assaulting a child in Windsor Locks in 2002. He served a year and a half in prison in the case and was released.

A forensic laboratory in Florida had retested a DNA sample found on Morrisette 10 years ago, by putting the profile into the national DNA database and a hit came back to Mitchell in December 2005, police said. Florida authorities contacted the state police laboratory in Connecticut, who retested the DNA profile taken from Mitchell in 2003 when he was convicted and confirmed it was corrected.

Florida authorities began investigating and learned that Mitchell had been in Florida at the time of Morrisette's death, police said. A press conference is expected later today announcing the arrest and how the DNA database for all sexual offenders helped solve the case.