The Bucks County Courier Times reports that a judge on Monday dropped the charges against a Philadelphia man who was accused of killing his former boss during a home invasion. Prosecutor Christopher Rees allegedly dropped the related rape allegations against defendant Thomas Delgado, 51, earlier in the hearing because DNA evidence disqualified him from being the person who had raped the 48-year-old victim Joseph Canazaro’s fiancée. There were still two charges out of the 34 total, but they were limited to the stolen black 2006 Lincoln Mark LT pickup truck. In the end, Rees also retracted those accusations.
In terms of the legal system, officials are starting over in their attempt to identify the person who killed businessman Joseph Catanzaro by stabbing him in his house.
”We do have some missing pieces here,” Judge Regina Armitage reportedly said in court on Monday. “Serious missing pieces.”
On January 18, 2013, two masked and armed males stormed into a house in the 300 block of Swartley Road in Hilltown Township, according to the authorities. One of them, supposedly Delgado, sexually assaulted the fiancee after they bound local businessman Canazaro, his fiancée, and his 12-year-old kid with zip ties.
The two assailants made off in Canazaro’s pickup vehicle after stealing cash, jewellery, and firearms.
The mother and the boy fled the basement when the woman was able to remove her blindfold and zip ties. But Canazaro was discovered by the authorities in the garage. He had been fatally stabbed and was restrained by zip ties.
Delgado, who allegedly has a history of violent acts, was taken into custody by the authorities in January. He is reported to have told investigators that he used to work physically for Canazaro.
But the DNA evidence that seemed to connect him to the crime turned out to be, at best, shaky. The fiancee had described the rapist as perhaps Hispanic, and the authorities had speculated that he may have wiped himself after the sexual assault with a shirt, but the defendant’s DNA did not match the sample.
“The facts of the affidavit have been proven untrue,” public defender Caroline Crist reportedly said. “We firmly believe Mr. Delgado is innocent of all charges.”
During his testimony on Monday, Hilltown Detective Louis Bell allegedly stated that the prosecution was awaiting confirmation if the DNA of Delgado matched material discovered on a mask found in the stolen truck that had shown up abandoned at a Quakertown shopping centre. Investigators indicated that the other suspect in the incident was Asian.
Prosecutors claim that surveillance footage captured the suspects loading the stolen goods from the truck into a Nissan automobile at the mall and driving away.
