DNA links suspects in police slaying

Despite disguises - two men as fully-garbed Muslim women, and a third in a shoulder-length dreadlock-style wig, dark glasses and surgical mask - the three bank robbers who then killed Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski left indelible calling cards: their DNA.

On guns, masks and clothing, a police forensic scientist testified Thursday, robbers left the genetic equivalent of the fingerprints of Howard Cain, Eric DeShann Floyd and Levon T. Warner.

Gregory Van Alstine, a forensic scientist with the police crime lab, told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury that DNA linked both Floyd and Warner to weapons or clothing used in the May 3, 2008 armed robbery of a Bank of America branch inside a ShopRite supermarket in Port Richmond.

DNA also tied Cain to the 35-shot SKS Chinese military assault rifle witnesses said he used to shoot and kill Liczbinski - pursuing the fleeing robbers' Jeep Liberty - at a confrontation at Almond and Schiller Streets in Port Richmond.

Cain, 33, was shot to death by police in another, later confrontation in Feltonville after Cain and his two accomplices sped from the scene at Almond and Schiller and then scattered.

Van Alstine was a key witness Thursday as the prosecution continued its case against Floyd, 35, of North Philadelphia and Warner, 41, of West Philadelphia, who are charged with murder in the death of Liczbinski, 39, a 12-year police veteran.

Assistant District Attorney Jude Conroy will close a third week of testimony Friday with Kenneth J. Lay, a firearms and ballistics expert with the police forensics lab.

Floyd and Warner face the death penalty if the jury finds them guilty of first-degree murder.

Defense attorneys Earl G. Kauffman, for Floyd, and W. Fred Harrison Jr. and Gary S. Server for Warner, have told the jury that Cain killed Liczbinski.

They have said Floyd and Warner are guilty of nothing more than second-degree murder - a killing during a serious felony - which carries a mandatory term of life in prison without parole.

Conroy has argued that criminal conspiracy law makes the two equally culpable with Cain for Liczbinski's shooting and death.

Liczbinski had been pursuing the SUV containing the three bank robbers the morning of May 3, 2008 when the Jeep stopped at Almond and Schiller Streets.

Witnesses have testified that Cain, mastermind of the bank robbery, jumped out of the Jeep and began firing the assault rifle at Liczbinski as he was getting out from behind of the wheel of his patrol car.

Liczbinski was hit eight times and killed.