Vanessa Marcotte. (Instagram)
Police are testing the DNA of a “person of interest” in the case of murdered jogger Vanessa Marcotte.
“That person is only described as someone with knowledge of the park where Vanessa Marcotte was found dead,” says WABC.
WCVB says the person “is familiar with the area where Marcotte’s body was found” on Aug. 7. However, the station notes that police have received hundreds of tips in the case. The person has not yet been identified.
Necn spoke to a man who said police had taken his DNA. He said that he didn’t show up for work the day after Marcotte died, but he denied killing the jogger. The man told Necn that he was watching TV and resting when Marcotte was murdered.
Marcotte, a Google employee from New York, was found murdered after she went for a jog near her mother’s home in Princeton, Massachusetts. Her body was found in a wooded area with burns and unclothed.
MassLive also reported on a strange encounter a woman said she had with a man and woman at Wachusett Mountain, which is located six miles from where Marcotte was found. The woman told The Daily Mail that the man had cuts on his arm around 2 p.m. on the Sunday Marcotte disappeared. The couple said they were in a motorcycle crash and had come to the mountain to clean up, said MassLive. The resort turned video footage of the man over to police, who say they believe Marcotte died between 1 and 3 p.m. Sunday, said MassLive.
Daily Mail says the man and woman told the employee an ambulance driver told them to come to the ski resort to clean up but the employee didn’t see any ambulance and thought the story was odd.
A friend posted this tribute photo of Marcotte on Twitter. “I still can’t believe it.
Vanessa Marcotte was always smiling – one of the nicest people you’d ever meet,” wrote Matt Cullen of Marcotte. He was one of many people who knew Marcotte to say positive things about her in the wake of her death. (Twitter/Matt Cullen)
“How can anything ever be all right again when your only child has been horribly murdered?” Vanessa’s father, John Marcotte, told UK Daily Mail. The father told Daily Mail that Vanessa didn’t have a serious boyfriend and he didn’t know of anyone in her life who would harm her but said that line of inquiry was also part of the investigation.
District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. previously held a news conference in which he said Marcotte’s attacker is a man who was probably injured while struggling with Marcotte. He said police “were looking for a man with cuts, bruises or scratches.”
Police are investigating whether Marcotte was sexually assaulted.
State police spokesman: #Princeton murder investigation of Vanessa Marcotte received 530 tips as of Saturday morning. No new developments
Marcotte’s death was the second murder of an east coast female jogger in days; police also recovered DNA in the case of Karina Vetrano, who was murdered while jogging in a park in Queens, New York.
Police have said they have no evidence at this point that the cases are related.
Vetrano worked as a caterer at the Vetro Lounge in Howard Beach.
Police have not yet found a match for the DNA in Karina’s case. A Go Fund Me site established to bolster a reward in Karina’s murder has raised more than $235,000.
