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Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)
Section: Main
Page: A1
Date: Wednesday, November 30, 2005
`Jane Doe' mystery solved
Police say tip, plus DNA testing, led to identification of young woman whose body was found under porch
By Anne Miller
Staff Writer
SCHENECTADY - The young woman found beneath a porch in Rotterdam now has a name, and a story.
Twice in a year, the petite 16-year-old had run away from her downstate home. The first time, she returned to her mother in Great Neck, Nassau County, after two weeks. The second time, she wound up buried in a pauper's grave with "Jane Doe" chiseled into a headstone donated by strangers.
Authorities gave Jane Doe a name Tuesday - Crystal Glasper.
Glasper was shot in the head last summer in Schenectady, rolled in garbage bags, taken to Rotterdam and discarded beneath the porch of a Cedarlawn Avenue home. She was 18.
The special needs student first went missing in June 2001. Her mother walked into the 6th Precinct of the Nassau County Police Department and said her daughter had run away from home after an argument, according to the missing person's report.
Glasper, then 16, returned after two weeks.
Eight months later, on Valentine's Day 2002, her mother returned to the 6th Precinct. Glasper had gone to live with her aunt on Arlington Avenue in the Bronx, but no one had seen her for about a month, she told police.
She had last spoken with her family in January 2002. And she never graduated from high school.
Authorities believe Glasper remained in the Bronx where she met DeWayne Wilson, who was convicted of drug charges stemming from sales at the Rotterdam house where Glasper's body was found.
How the two met or how Glasper made it to Schenectady is unclear, but authorities say Wilson allegedly used Glasper to carry drugs to Schenectady.
Robert Carney, Schenectady County district attorney, and the Rotterdam police said Glasper was in the Capital Region for only about a week before she was killed sometime in summer 2004. Her badly decomposed body was found Dec. 26.
For months after the gruesome discovery, police combed national missing persons databases. They didn't have much to go on. A T-shirt, necklace and little more than bones had been recovered from beneath the porch.
Authorities were looking for a woman probably in her 20s, possibly older. They had a DNA sample but never found a match. Rotterdam investigators guessed they examined the profiles of more than 1,000 young women.
A break came in mid-September. Authorities wouldn't name the tipster who gave them Glasper's name.
But the new information came as another man linked to the Rotterdam house pleaded guilty to drug charges. The plea agreement between Shawn Delayo, who admitted to attempting to sell drugs, and the district attorney's office was sealed from public view. At the time, Carney said an ongoing police investigation demanded the high level of secrecy.
"We're not going to comment on Shawn Delayo, whether he's a witness or a suspect or anything of that nature," said Rotterdam Police Chief James Hamilton.
Nor would he comment on what kind of gun killed her or whether police had the weapon.
After the tip, state troopers and Rotterdam officers traveled to Long Island and took DNA samples from Glasper's mother, which cemented the identification. Rotterdam Police Investigator Chris Foster said the mother had nothing left of her daughter's possessions that would have yielded a DNA sample. Police also said the family did not want their names made public and didn't want to speak with the media.
The main suspect in Glasper's death is DeWayne Wilson, who was convicted of selling cocaine from the Rotterdam home where her body was found. Her identity became public during Wilson's sentencing Tuesday morning.
"Her murder and disposal illustrate the dangers in our community," Carney said.
Wilson had a history of drug use and dealing. Starting in 1978, he racked up about a dozen criminal convictions. All the crimes occurred in the Bronx, Carney told Judge Karen A. Drago in the Schenectady County Court.
Wilson's attorney, Mark Gaylord, said Wilson's history is "the story of a man who was abandoned by his parents and was addicted to drugs for many years."
Wilson stared by turns at Carney and at the table in front of him, shaking his head.
"I have a long history of substance abuse," Wilson told the court before he was sentenced to a maximum of 28 years in state prison.
"I'm anything but a drug dealer. In fact, if I had my way, I would help get rid of drug dealers," Wilson said.
Carney said he plans to present evidence in Glasper's murder to a grand jury soon and hopes for an indictment before January. Hamilton said more arrests are probable, although his department has finished its part of the investigation.
The porch at 2038 Cedarlawn Ave. is a pile of dismantled lumber now. For a few months, the house had a "For Sale" sign in front. Today, there's a building permit in the window as the new owner adds 360 square feet to the front.
The release of the teenager's identity closes a sad chapter in the history of the town.
Rotterdam has had few murders, and the woman under the porch was the first Jane Doe that anyone in town could recall.
The case touched Schenectady County residents. More than 50 attended services at the Daly Funeral Home in April after police had released her remains. They said no one should leave this world without someone to mourn them.
At the service, two clergy members spoke. Good Samaritans and funeral home director Larry Daly paid for the headstone at the Park View Cemetery on Fehr Road.
On Tuesday, a funeral home representative said Glasper's mother had called. She is paying for a new headstone with her daughter's name.
Factbox:
Crime story
Events in the mysterious case of Crystal Glasper
DECEMBER 27, 2004
POLICE search for evidence at the home and in a trash bin after the discovery of a woman's body at 2038 Cederlawn Avenue in Rotterdam. The body was found the evening before.
FEBRUARY 1, 2005
INVESTIGATORS release images of a gold pendant and a logo on a T-shirt worn by the woman whose body was found under the porch.
APRIL 15, 2005
THOUGH her identity remained unknown at the time, residents turned out to pay their respects at a service at the Daly Funeral Home in Schenectady.