- November 19, 2024
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Flagler County Sheriff’s Office detectives used a new DNA program in an investigation that has led to fraud and grand theft charges against 71-year-old Palm Coast resident Alford Leon Jenkins.
“Had it not been for the DNA evidence collected by our deputy at the time of the incident, this case most likely would have gone unsolved,” Sheriff James L. Manfre said in a news release. “I have no doubt that we will be making more arrests in the future because of this technology.”
This case was the first time the Sheriff’s Office has received a DNA hit using the new touch DNA program.
The crime happened in October 2013. A 61-year-old Palm Coast woman told deputies a man approached her outside of a Wells Fargo Bank on Palm Coast Parkway and showed her a folder he said contained cash. He asked her if she was knew of an address written on the outside of a folder, according to the news release.
The woman said she didn’t. Then a second man walked up, and said he knew where the address was but would need a ride to get there. He told the woman his boss had offered $15,000 reward for finding the folder containing the money. The second man said his boss wanted to see the folder with the money before he gave them the reward, and the two men conned the elderly woman into withdrawing $6,000 from her account and giving it to them to show to their “boss,” according to the news release.
They drove with the woman to Advanced Hearing Center located at 1000 Palm Coast Parkway, where they said they would give the folder of money to the “boss” and claim the reward. But when they got there, the woman went to talk to the man inside the building, and he said the store had no other employees at work that day. When she walked outside, the two men had fled with her $6000, according to the news release.
During the investigation, deputies collected touch DNA evidence from the woman’s car, and sent it to DNA Labs International for analysis.
They also sent a sample to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and entered it into the Combined DNA Index System, and a match appeared: Jenkins, whose DNA was already on file, according to the news release.
He was already in custody in Miami-Dade County after a Dec., 2013 arrest there on charges of strong-arm robbery and abuse of an elderly or disabled adult, according to Miami -Dade County Corrections records.
Flagler County deputies have charged him with one count each of organized fraud and grand theft, according to the news release.
