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10-01-2009, 07:45 AM
Portrait of a cold-case suspect: A man facing hard times
September 30, 2009 By MATTHEW CHAYES matthew.chayes@newsday.com
BAINBRIDGE, N.Y. - Even in this economically downtrodden upstate town, Joey Bethea seemed particularly hard up for cash, routinely pressing neighbors for odd jobs to earn a couple bucks, they recalled Wednesday.
Lugging a couch up the stairs into a neighbor's attic earned Bethea $10, one resident said. And with wood from his day job at a nearby lumber yard, he fashioned birdhouses from scratch to sell door to door.
He also tried his hand at games of chance: He was a mainstay at the nearby Quickway gas station, where he bought scratch-off lottery tickets, a former store clerk said.
On Tuesday, Nassau County police arrested Bethea in the 1989 killing and rape of Dorothy LeConte, a case dating back to his teenage days in Hempstead.
Police said since 1989, Bethea has been convicted of crimes four times, and at least twice was required to submit a DNA sample that went into a state crime computer database. It was a DNA match between a cheek swab Bethea gave police and semen found on LeConte that led police to charge him Tuesday.
It's not completely clear how Bethea made it from the metro area to upstate, but more than a dozen neighbors interviewed all said he was polite and kind to them.
Bethea, who lived here in the rear of a ramshackle former church where no one answered the door Wednesday, was a regular in the neighborhood, prowling the block for work and bending his neighbors' ears.
Justin McCarthy recalls tossing a football with his siblings in the backyard when Bethea came by and wowed the 12-year-old.
"He said, 'I used to play quarterback in high school down in Long Island,' " McCarthy said.
They all then played catch with Justin's Nerf football. "He had a really good throw - perfect spiral," Justin said.
Justin's mother, Lisa, said they first met Bethea when he knocked on the door to ask if he could take the VCRs they were throwing away.
Bonnie Thomas, who lives across the street, said she was one of Bethea's closest friends on their block. She called the accusations the handiwork of "a corrupt system . . . that's really messed up.
"There are two sides to every story," Thomas said. She said Bethea is a nice man who works hard to support his son Josiah, 6, who lives with his estranged wife. "Joe Bethea isn't capable of murder," Thomas, 44, said. "I wouldn't hang out with somebody if I thought they would kill me."
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/portrait-of-a-cold-case-suspect-a-man-facing-hard-times-1.1490490
September 30, 2009 By MATTHEW CHAYES matthew.chayes@newsday.com
BAINBRIDGE, N.Y. - Even in this economically downtrodden upstate town, Joey Bethea seemed particularly hard up for cash, routinely pressing neighbors for odd jobs to earn a couple bucks, they recalled Wednesday.
Lugging a couch up the stairs into a neighbor's attic earned Bethea $10, one resident said. And with wood from his day job at a nearby lumber yard, he fashioned birdhouses from scratch to sell door to door.
He also tried his hand at games of chance: He was a mainstay at the nearby Quickway gas station, where he bought scratch-off lottery tickets, a former store clerk said.
On Tuesday, Nassau County police arrested Bethea in the 1989 killing and rape of Dorothy LeConte, a case dating back to his teenage days in Hempstead.
Police said since 1989, Bethea has been convicted of crimes four times, and at least twice was required to submit a DNA sample that went into a state crime computer database. It was a DNA match between a cheek swab Bethea gave police and semen found on LeConte that led police to charge him Tuesday.
It's not completely clear how Bethea made it from the metro area to upstate, but more than a dozen neighbors interviewed all said he was polite and kind to them.
Bethea, who lived here in the rear of a ramshackle former church where no one answered the door Wednesday, was a regular in the neighborhood, prowling the block for work and bending his neighbors' ears.
Justin McCarthy recalls tossing a football with his siblings in the backyard when Bethea came by and wowed the 12-year-old.
"He said, 'I used to play quarterback in high school down in Long Island,' " McCarthy said.
They all then played catch with Justin's Nerf football. "He had a really good throw - perfect spiral," Justin said.
Justin's mother, Lisa, said they first met Bethea when he knocked on the door to ask if he could take the VCRs they were throwing away.
Bonnie Thomas, who lives across the street, said she was one of Bethea's closest friends on their block. She called the accusations the handiwork of "a corrupt system . . . that's really messed up.
"There are two sides to every story," Thomas said. She said Bethea is a nice man who works hard to support his son Josiah, 6, who lives with his estranged wife. "Joe Bethea isn't capable of murder," Thomas, 44, said. "I wouldn't hang out with somebody if I thought they would kill me."
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/portrait-of-a-cold-case-suspect-a-man-facing-hard-times-1.1490490