Ex-con indicted in NYC cold-case killings of mom and daughter claims: ‘I’m not guilty’
The ailing ex-con accused of slaying a Harlem mom and her special needs-daughter told a judge he was “hanging in there” — and proclaimed his innocence — as he was hit with a murder indictment in the 1994 cold case on Thursday.
Larry Atkinson, 64, who is now confined to a wheelchair, was hit with two murder raps in the strangulation deaths of Sarah Roberts, 57, and her 25-year-old daughter Sharon Roberts at the Grant Houses housing complex on Feb. 20, 1994.
“You got the wrong person in jail,” Atkinson told Judge Althrea Drysdale at his arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court. “I’m not guilty!”
But Manhattan prosecutors allege Atkinson is a cold-blooded killer who got away with the double-slaying for nearly three decades — until DNA technology caught up with him.
“As science advances, so does our ability to solve cold cases,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “Here, new technology led to an indictment alleging the horrific murders of a mother and daughter dating back almost 30 years.”
Atkinson was arrested by NYPD cold-case detectives last month after being linked to the slayings by DNA evidence from a cigarette butt and fingernail clippings, authorities said.
The ex-con was dating a home health care worker for Sharon Roberts, who was developmentally disabled, when the two victims were found in their apartment.
The aide, Celeste Cornelius, still lives with Atkinson in her Harlem apartment.
Sara Roberts was found on her bed and her daughter on the floor with “a woolen stocking wrapped around her neck,” prosecutors said.
Atkinson has 28 arrests on his rap sheet and has served state prison sentences five times dating to 1985 on assault, drug and attempted robbery convictions, records show.
He now suffers from cancer and other ailments, his lawyer said in court.
“He is going to be 65 years old on the eighteenth of this month,” defense attorney Michelle Villasenor-Grant said. “Rikers Island is doing their best to assist my client with his medical issues.”
But, she added, “it is difficult for him to see and to communicate with his family.”
Asked by the judge how he was doing, he pulled down his mask and said, “hanging in there.”
