Twenty four years after a teenage US beauty queen was found sexually assaulted and strangled in her apartment a 60-year-old Trinidadian night watchman has been arrested for her murder, it was learned yesterday.
By Julien NeavesLast Friday David Winfield Mitchell was held by Interpol detectives at his workplace at Erica Street, Rock City, Laventille for the 1982 murder of Sheila Harris.
Mitchell was arrested at about 11.30 a.m. by Interpol detectives Gabriel, Narace and Guerra, officials told the Express.
Harris, then 18 and the reigning Miss Douglas County, was found dead in her apartment at Long Street and Lompa Lane, Carson City, Nevada where Mitchell had been working as a maintenance man. An autopsy revealed she had been sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled.
"My family has worked and prayed for this for 24 years." Harris's mother, Linda Bratton, told Carson City-based newspaper Nevada Appeal.
Mitchell was said to have been arrested during the initial case but was released.
Carson City Sheriff Kenny Furlong told the international press that technology unavailable at the time led to the latest arrest and Mitchell was linked to the crime through DNA found on Harris' body and clothing.
"This case has never died," Furlong said. "We've always had a strong sense of who the suspect was and getting enough evidence to prove it has taken some time."
According to the Nevada Appeal report back in 1999 the case was being reviewed by the Carson City Police Department and Bratton had requested that it be submitted for DNA testing. In 2000, when DNA results came back allegedly linking Mitchell to the crime, the former handyman's whereabouts were unknown.
Mitchell had been deported to Trinidad shortly after Harris's murder, after being accused of living in the country illegally.
In January 2005, at the request of Carson City authorities, Interpol found Mitchell living in Mt Hope and working as a night watchman with the Ministry of Works, the report stated. In January 2006 a murder complaint charging Mitchell with murder with the use of a deadly weapon was filed at the Carson City Justice Court.
"We have kept a continuity list of how to contact people associated with this investigation all along," Furlong said.
He reported that Mitchell was expected to be extradited to the US within weeks.
On Friday Mitchell made his first court appearance before Magistrate Harris in the Fifth Court, Port of Spain. The case was put off to Wednesday where he will reappear at the Eighth Court before Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls whose purview is extradition matters.
