DNA was detectives’ ‘Hail Mary’ in slaying of woman, 19

Had the person who killed Nicole Franco worn gloves, he might still be free. Instead, DNA left behind by Franco's young neighbor was enough to make an arrest, the lead detective said.

Franco, 19, a pastry chef and culinary arts student known to friends and family as Nikki, was stabbed multiple times in the chest with one of her own knives during a burglary in her Oakland Park apartment June 3.

A pool at the Bridgewater Place gated apartments stood between her building and that of D'Marcus Tucker, 15, who lived with his mother and a sibling in the 2700 block of Northwest 44th Street.

Tucker was arrested Oct. 31 and will be charged with her murder, authorities said.

The investigation

"There was not a lot of evidence," said Broward Sheriff's Detective Kevin Forsberg, lead investigator in the five-month-old case. "We had prints on a door. There was nothing else inside."

Franco was asleep about 3:30 a.m., beneath a new comforter her mother had sent from New Jersey, when she was attacked. The murder weapon cut through the bed cover.

"The swabs taken from around the incise marks was our Hail Mary, and we thought it was the best possible evidence we had," Forsberg said. "Our belief was each time he made contact with the comforter, he would leave more skin cells."

Such evidence, called "touch DNA," can be one of the hardest forms to recover, Forsberg said. A friend, the person who assembled the comforter set before it was sold, or an assailant not in state or federal databases could have left behind DNA.

Investigators had to exclude the innocent, Sgt. Scott Champagne said.

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DNA was detectives' 'Hail Mary' in slaying of woman, 19