A former UW-Madison student was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide this summer in connection with the stabbing death of a Madison man in January.
Madison Police arrested 20-year-old Adam Peterson on June 26 at his mother's home in Grant, Minn., nearly six months after Joel Marino, 31, was fatally stabbed in his downtown home Jan. 28.
We have a great sense of relief in reaching some closure on this homicide,"" Madison Police Chief Noble Wray said at a news conference following Peterson's arrest.
Forensic evidence collected from a knife, backpack and knit cap found at the scene all contained DNA samples of the same white male, police said. After a five-month investigation, it was this DNA evidence that led investigators to Peterson.
According to the criminal complaint, Peterson first came into contact with police when he reported his laptop missing from his West Main Street apartment on Jan. 20. He then reported the same laptop missing on Feb. 25, telling police he needed a case number to receive a replacement from Dell.
After the encounters, police deemed Peterson's actions unusual and added him to an internal database of people who display strange behavior in case officers have to deal with them again. Police said they eventually checked on Peterson at his apartment after his roommates called police with concerns.
According to the complaint, Madison detectives traveled to Minnesota on June 26 and obtained a DNA sample from Peterson, who had been living there with his mother since March. The evidence was sent to the Wisconsin State Crime Lab and promptly resulted in a match to the items found at Marino's home.
A recorded jailhouse conversation between Peterson and his father played at a July 18 preliminary hearing revealed that Peterson said he stabbed Marino, a stranger, during an attempted robbery.
""I just stabbed him out of nowhere,"" Peterson told his father. Peterson also said he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the killing and he ""just wasn't thinking sanely.""
Peterson graduated from Stillwater Area High School in 2006 and transferred to UW-Madison from UW-La Crosse in the fall of 2007, but dropped out in October. He remains in the Dane County Jail on $1 million bail, and his trial is scheduled to begin in January 2009.
Wray said ""there is no current forensic connection"" to link Peterson to the April 2 homicide of UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann.
