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| Man jailed, twin set free by DNA |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 04/20/2001 |
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A suspect in a woman's slaying more than a decade ago was in a Florida jail Thursday after detectives matched his DNA at a crime scene and cleared his twin brother, who shares the genetic fingerprint. Brian Calzacorto, 37, was being held in the Pinellas County Jail without bail Thursday in the slaying of Laurie Colannino, a 23-year-old cocktail waitress found raped and stabbed at her apartment in Largo in 1990. Detectives cleared his twin brother, Alfred Calzacorto Jr., after determining he likely was at work in Tampa at the time of the killing, court documents said. Detectives, after reopening the case is 1994, had turned their attention to Brian Calzacorto when he was the only man living in the apartment complex where Colannino's body was found who refused to give a DNA sample. About 170 other men who lived in the complex were eliminated as suspects after voluntarily allowing their DNA to be compared to body fluids found at the crime scene. When detectives asked Alfred Calzacorto Jr. for a blood or saliva sample - knowing a twin would have identical DNA - he too refused, authorities said. The case lay dormant until August, when investigators staked out Brian Colzacorto's apartment in Tampa and watched him take bags of garbage to the curb. Inside, the detectives found the screen from an electric razor and cigarette butts. Using that evidence, scientists at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement laboratory found a DNA match. The chance of the DNA matching another white male is one in 1.49-quintillion, according to arrest reports. The Calzacorte family made headlines in Donora, Pa., in 1986 when the twins' father, a police officer, was found shot to death in his bed. Authorities identified Brian Calzacorto as a suspect, but did not charge him. The case remains unsolved. |
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