Man convicted of '89 murder of Haitian woman

A DNA swab first connected him to the rape and murder, unsolved since 1989. Monday, a jury convicted Joey Bethea of second-degree murder and felony murder in the killing of a Haitian immigrant found raped and strangled more than two decades ago in a wooded area near Hempstead High School.

The verdict was returned Monday in Nassau County Court in Mineola.

Bethea, 40, faces 25 years to life at his sentencing.

Authorities said the DNA sample was the only thing tying Bethea to the murder of Dorothy LeConte, 22, who had come from North Bergen, N.J., to visit relatives in Hempstead.

Bethea's attorney Joe LoPiccolo said his client "is maintaining his innocence."

After the verdict was returned, LoPiccolo told Newsday: "[Mr. Bethea] does not recall the specifics that led to his sexual encounter with the victim . . . But he is maintaining his innocence and had nothing to do with her death."

Bethea was arrested several times between 1991 and June 2009, police said.

But it was a swab of DNA following that 2009 arrest for misdemeanor petty larceny after being accused of stealing from a donation jar in a gas station in upstate Bainbridge that authorities said linked Bethea to the unsolved murder.

Bethea was living in upstate Sidney at the time.

Police said LeConte had taken a bus from New Jersey to visit her brother and aunt in Hempstead, but never arrived. Her body was found in a small pool of water in a creek bed by two school custodians on a high campus footbridge the next day. The area was just off Peninsula Boulevard, a few blocks from the aunt's home.

In 2002, DNA samples from LeConte's body were submitted to the state police lab - but no matches were found.