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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesFBI DELAY IN EVIDENCE TESTING HOLDS UP TRIAL

FBI DELAY IN EVIDENCE TESTING HOLDS UP TRIAL

Delays in the case of a 25-year-old man accused of strangling his girlfriend last October in the Frederiksted area and burying her body in their backyard will push the murder trial into next month.
Marvin Dominguez’s court-appointed attorney, Richard Daley, has a motion pending in Territorial Court asking that the case involving the death of Patricia Ann Haumacher, 30, be dropped because the government has yet to produce evidence against his client. The lack of test results on DNA, hair, blood and soil samples submitted to the FBI Crime Laboratory by government prosecutors in early March means the trial that was set to start on Monday will be delayed.
Daley said on Thursday that Territorial Court Judge Alphonso Andrews is scheduled to hear several motions concerning the case, including the motion to dismiss, on Sept. 4.
Dominguez is being held on $100,000 bond. After turning himself in to police in late November, he pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges.
Members of Haumacher’s family in New Jersey reported her missing on Nov. 9 after not hearing from her for more than a month. On Nov. 13, V.I. police interviewed Dominguez, who told investigators she had been having family problems and had left the island. The last time acquaintances of Dominguez and Haumacher recalled seeing her was around Oct. 8.
Dominguez turned himself in on Nov. 29, soon after authorities had again questioned him about Haumacher’s whereabouts. The next day, police found Haumacher’s body, bound and gagged, inside a duffel bag in a shallow grave in the yard of the house the two had shared in Estate Two Brothers. An autopsy determined that the victim died of strangulation and had been dead for one to two months.

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