DNA Helps Charlottesville Police Nab Cold Case Suspect

DNA evidence helps solve a six-year-old crime and police find their suspect already behind bars.

A convicted felon who's DNA some how never made it into the statewide data bank may now find himself facing charges in a cold case.

The General Assembly recently fixed a loophole in the collection of DNA samples from convicted felons and Charlottesville Police landed a hit on an old breaking and entering case.

Come June 4th, 46-year-old Martin Coye Holley was expecting to walk out of a Virginia state prison a free man, but now he'll most likely walk right into another jail.

“There's a detainer filed at the penitentiary to know not to release him and we'll have two detectives go over and pick him up,” said Charlottesville Police Capt. Chip Harding.

That's because DNA evidence allegedly links him to a six-year-old crime here in Charlottesville. Police believe Holley is the man who broke into the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue and stole some cash the day after Christmas back in 2000. Police said they recovered Holley’s DNA from the crime scene.

"We knew who entered cut themselves when they went into a window they broke out,” said Harding.

According to Captain Chip Harding, Holley should have been linked to this crime long ago, but his DNA like thousands of others was missing from the statewide databank.

“Because he had this lengthy record and many times he had been arrested and convicted of felonies for some reason or another but his DNA was not obtained or was obtained and failed to make it into the databank,” said Harding.

This loophole discovered by Harding last year spawned legislation passed by the General Assembly in January. The new law allows the state to collect missing samples like Holley’s and will make sure DNA samples are collected from all convicted felons in the future.

With 8,000 outstanding samples waiting to be collected, authorities anticipate we'll see more cold cases like this one solved.

The state is gradually collecting the missing samples. Although some may never be collected if the convicted felons are no longer on probation or have left the state.