DNA links suspect to 1993 Yonkers slaying

By JONATHAN BANDLER

YONKERS — A DNA match has linked a Virginia inmate to the slaying of a 33-year-old Yonkers woman 13 years ago.

Troy Cartwright, 41, pleaded not guilty yesterday after an indictment charging him with second-degree murder was unsealed in Westchester County Court.

Cartwright is accused of stabbing Deborah Cobb more than 30 times after trying to rape her in her Warburton Avenue apartment on Sept. 22, 1993. Her body was discovered the following day by friends after relatives had gotten repeated busy signals when they tried to reach her by phone.

Cartwright, also known as Troy Edmondson and Vaughn Allah, was arrested in an unrelated case in Virginia three months later and has been imprisoned ever since. Although an acquaintance of the victim, he never was identified as a suspect in the Cobb slaying until more than a decade later. Forensic testing matched crime scene evidence to a DNA sample he was required to give Virginia prison officials in January 1995, authorities said.

Cobb met Cartwright through his sister, who was a friend.

Her sister, Sharon, a Mount Vernon resident, attended yesterday's arraignment with Detective John Geiss of the Yonkers cold case squad. She said her family had waited a long time for justice but never gave up hope that an arrest would be made.

"Not knowing, we just worried that it could happen to someone else," she said. "Thank God (for DNA). I think that's the only way he would have been caught."

Cobb is suffering from health problems and was recently in the hospital. "If I had to crawl here today, I was going to be here," she said. "We just want to know why she had to die."

The match to Cartwright's DNA in the national database was made by the Westchester County forensics lab in 2003 after evidence from the crime scene was retested for DNA evidence.

In December, Geiss went to speak with Cartwright at the Wallenes Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Va. He brought news that Cartwright's son had been arrested in Massachusetts and pictures of the son's daughter, a granddaughter Cartwright never knew he had. According to a report Geiss filed, Cartwright was upset that his son was following in his footsteps.

Cartwright expressed remorse about Cobb's death but said he would only tell Geiss what happened when he was back in New York. Geiss suggested he knew what happened. He told Cartwright he had seen a picture of his ex-wife and that Cobb looked just like her. According to the report, when Geiss asked if that was why he killed her, Cartwright shook his head up and down.

He was sentenced in 1994 to more than 50 years in prison for shooting someone during a robbery in Roanoke, Va., in December 1993. He became eligible for parole four years ago and was due to be released no later than 2022, the Virginia Department of Correction said.

Once he was indicted in the Cobb slaying, Cartwright agreed to return to New York. He will remain at the Westchester County Jail until his trial.