Andrea Cincotta

On August 21, 1998 at the end of his workday, Chris Johnson returned to his condo where he and he fiancé, Andrea Cincotta lived in Arlington, Virginia. He thought it a bit odd she was not at home when he arrived, but he waited patiently assuming she would show up within a short period of time to go out to the movies for the evening or stay in and watch a video. The evening passed, however, and Andrea did not come home. He eventually called an area hospital but Andrea had not been in accident and had not shown up in the emergency room. He did his laundry, watched a little television and eventually lied down on the bed and dozed off. He awoke at one thirty in the morning and still Andrea had not come home. He gazed across the room in the dark and noticed her closet door was closed. He walked over and opened it and found the body of Andrea curled up on the floor, cold and long dead.

Over two years have passed since that dreadful night. The police heavily interrogated Andrea's fiancé in the days following the crime. He cooperated fully with them. They told him they believed he had come home from work, gotten into an argument with his fiancé and accidentally killed her. They pressured him until they got a confession. This would not be the first time that then Detective Bob Carrig had gotten a confession from an innocent man. David Vasquez was released after a long stay in a Virginia prison for the 1984 Arlington rape and murder of Carolyn Hamm, later believed to be one of a set of serial murders committed by serial killer, Timothy Spencer. Carrig elicited a false confession from Vasquez. Carrig's methods of interrogation are, at best, questionable. It seems that he has a habit of giving a suspect false details of the crime, and then pressuring the suspect to agree.

The story that Chris Johnson finally agreed to might have made sense except for a number of conflicting points. First, the confession only included knocking her off balance and her strinking her head during an argument. This is what they told him happened. He never "confessed" to strangling Andrea, yet this was the cause of death found according to both her death certificate and public statements by the police. In addition, Andrea Cincotta was supposed to meet a friend for lunch. She never showed up. In addition, she did not answer numerous phone calls to her residence that afternoon. In fact, nobody is known to have seen her alive after lunchtime. The Arlington Police Department and the Medical Examiner's office have refused to tell the family the time of death and have refused to allow the family the right to see the autopsy report even after Andrea's son, Kevin Cincotta, went to court over the matter. If Johnson really hit his fiancé by accident when he returned from work that evening, why did Andrea not show up for her luncheon appointment with her friend even though she had confirmed it that very morning? Is the reason the police have refused to share the time of death with the family possibly connected to the fact Johnson has an ironclad alibi for the entire workday? Is this why he has never been contacted by the police since the week of the homicide? Or is it because the police are covering up something much more serious: that their lack of an investigation may have led to the rape and attempted murder of a 13-year-old girl a year later.

The story has other odd notes. Several items were removed from the condo. To our knowledge, they have never been recovered. Did Andrea's fiancé purposely take the items to "falsify a burglary," without doing other, more basic things that would create that impression, such as jimmying the lock on the front door and ransacking the condo?

The police also seemed to theorize that Johnson had accidentally killed his fiancé in an argument. However, she was later found in the autopsy to have been strangled. Are the police having us believe that after he hit his fiancé by accident, he then cold-bloodedly just finished her off? For a man with no previous history of domestic violence or violence of any kind and no known motive for the murder, the story is a bit strange. Could this be why over fourteen months have passed and the police have made no arrest? They have indicated to the family that they are still focusing on him as the only suspect in the case and have told me in my phone calls to the department that this is an "unusual case", yet no arrest has been made. The family wants to know: why are no other suspects are being considered? Is this really a death from a domestic dispute or is this actually a burglary-related homicide that has never been investigated as such? If Andrea Cincotta's fiancé was really involved with her death, why is the department stalling on the arrest? Are they struggling to make conflicting facts fit the story? Are they wasting time overfocusing on the fiancé rather than following other leads in the death of Andrea Cincotta?

Although the police have not made the facts of this case public, what is known of the crime scene leads this profiler to theorize the homicide was an interrupted burglary. Andrea Cincotta had plans for her day off including a luncheon appointment with a good friend. Andrea was not the type to break her dates and not show up without a phone call. Yet she never appeared and no one had heard anything from her since that morning. As she sometimes left the front door unlocked, it is likely someone entered the apartment believing no one was at home, came in and surprised Andrea The perpetrator may have hit her and when she fell to the floor, strangled her to prevent identification either because she would recognize him or he was on probation. Upon killing her, the perpetrator may have grabbed what was in sight and took off. The perpetrator of this kind of crime is a relatively disorganized criminal. The planning of the crime was minimal and the attack was for self-preservation (prevention of identification). This offender would have a transient work history, a possible criminal record of burglary and/or drug arrests and no more than a high school education, if that much. He would live in a relatively low income housing area. He would rely on public transport or walking. If he owns a vehicle, it will be an old vehicle, not well kept up. It may have dead tags. He would be unable to drive a manual transmission vehicle properly. The perpetrator of this crime would either live within the Arlington area or have done work near or on the condo grounds. It is also possible that he was visiting the Arlington courthouse down the road. Since the condo is somewhat off the road with other more accessible condos nearer to the road and the condo was on the second floor, the killer may have been to the condo for some reason in the recent past and had some previous contact with the victim. He would most likely be African-American as the stolen vehicle was found near Barry Farms in SE DC and the perpetrator of this crime would most likely returned quickly to his comfort zone. His age would likely be between 25 years and thirty-five years old.

The Cincotta family would like the Arlington Police to come forward and make their stand on this case clear. They would like to know if the time of death exonerates Johnson or not. They would like to know if they have made a wholehearted investigative effort into the other possible suspects in this case. They would simply like to know the truth.

UPDATE! SUSPECT IDENTIFIED! (click here)

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