Vanessa Teresa Marcotte (June 17, 1989 – August 7, 2016) was a 27-year-old American woman who, while walking[1] on a rural road in Princeton, Massachusetts, was assaulted and murdered.
Her case went unsolved until April 15, 2017, when authorities announced that 31-year-old Angelo Colon-Ortiz of Worcester, Massachusetts, had been arrested for her murder after being linked by DNA evidence.
An only child, she attended the Bancroft School in Worcester, Massachusetts, and graduated with honors with a bachelor's degree in communications from Boston University in 2011.
She then proceeded into her professional career where she worked at an online marketing software startup in Boston called WordStream, as well as at the American offices of Vistaprint.
[4][5] On Sunday, August 7, 2016, Marcotte left her mother's house on Brooks Station Road in Princeton in the early afternoon to go for a walk[6] before heading back to New York by commuter bus later in the day.
[16] According to a local witness, Marcotte stopped at the Mountainside Market on Hubbardston Road in the afternoon for a drink, and was last seen alive walking while talking on her cell phone after 1 PM.
In November 2016, they stated they were seeking additional information about a black or dark-colored SUV that had been seen parked on the road at the time and area where Marcotte was killed.
[30][31] On February 23, 2017, more than six months after the murder, the Worcester County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. released further details on the investigation, stating that the DNA of Marcotte's killer had been sent to a lab and a profile had been created.
Based on the DNA evidence and witness statements, the suspect in the slaying was a hispanic male in his late 20s to 30s, with an athletic build, average height and either short or shaved hair.
[36] According to authorities, a Massachusetts state police trooper on patrol in Worcester had seen Colon-Ortiz, who matched the description of the suspect, driving a vehicle identical to the one seen on the day of Marcotte's murder.
[41][42][43] Authorities revealed on the day of the murder, a local resident recalled seeing Colon-Ortiz outside his parked black SUV with the hood up, talking on his cell phone, around 12:45 in the afternoon.