Re: 7/12/00 - State has long list of Serra evidence
State has long list of Serra evidence
JoAnne Viviano, Register Staff July 12, 2000
NEW HAVEN — The state has compiled more than 2,000 pieces of evidence in a 27-year-old murder case that accuses Edward R. Grant of slaying a woman in what some have termed the city’s most notorious killing.
Grant, 57, of Waterbury, is charged with the murder of 21-year-old Concetta "Penney" Serra, who was found July 16, 1973, at the bottom of a 10th-floor stairwell in the Temple Street parking garage.
She suffered a stab wound to the heart.
On Tuesday, the state filed in Superior Court more than 70 pages that list the pieces of evidence that have been made available to the defense. Under state statute, all evidence collected by the state must be shared with the defense.
The list of thousands of pieces of evidence — in files and boxes — covers material collected from 1973 through the 1980s and 1990s and into this year.
Among the items are fingerprints, lab studies bloodstains, clothing, a bloodstained handkerchief, a tissue, knives, photographs, police reports and files, witness statements, graphs, letters, maps and diagrams. The list also names dozens of items seized from the car Serra drove the day of her death.
The documents list more than 340 items relating to DNA and scientific testing. These items date from 1988 to this year, an indication that the state may have conducted further DNA testing since Grant’s June 1999 arrest.
At the time of the arrest, DNA blood testing linked Grant to stains found inside the car, on a tissue and on a handkerchief, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The significance of each item on the four evidence lists is unclear. A current gag order bars lawyers and others involved in the case from commenting to the media.
Mentioned on the list are the taped hypnoses of two men who said they were in the garage near the time of Serra’s murder and saw a man chasing a woman. Also appearing are communications between local investigators and police departments across the country, some regarding the murders of other women.
The volume of evidence seems to point to the persistent yet unsuccessful past investigations into the murder.
Besides Grant, also appearing on the list are the names of three earlier suspects — Philip DeLieto, Anthony Golino and Selman Topciu. Even though they may not become part of the case against Grant, the state is required by law to turn over all evidence gathered since the start of the murder investigation.
DeLieto, Serra’s boyfriend, was dropped as a suspect after witnesses said he was nowhere near the garage at the time of the murder and blood evidence ruled him out as the killer. He was never charged.
Golino was arrested in 1984, but the charge was dismissed nearly three years later, on the eve of trial, when blood evidence eliminated him as a suspect. Dozens of evidence items relate to the case police attempted to build against him.
Police also attempted to arrest Topciu, but a judge refused to sign arrest warrants and charges were dropped because fingerprint evidence was inconsistent and 1998 and 1999 DNA tests excluded him as the killer.
Grant, who is free on $500,000 bond, has pleaded innocent. He told reporters, upon his arrest, that he had never heard of Serra.
A 12-page affidavit supporting the arrest warrant against Grant shows that blood covered the 10th-floor walls, floors, stairs and railings where Serra was found. Bloodstains were also found on other levels of the garage and on a bloodstained handkerchief. Blood was also found on tissues and a tissue box in the vehicle.
In 1997, following Grant’s arrest on a domestic violence charge, investigators discovered his fingerprint matched one found on the tissue box. DNA blood testing done after the fingerprint match linked Grant to the murder, according to the affidavit.
Grant, a military veteran, told police he had suffered a severe head injury in a military vehicle accident, had plates in his skull and suffered memory loss, the affidavit shows.
He said he received outpatient care at the Veterans Affairs medical center in West Haven within a month of Serra’s death. He had worked as an independent insurance adjuster throughout the state and said he may have visited a Whalley Avenue business.
©New Haven Register 2000
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