A small piece of tape may have solved the six-year-old murder case of aspiring actress Alexandra Ducsay.
In May 2006, the 26-year-old Ducsay was found bludgeoned to death in the basement of her home in Milford, Conn., according to the Connecticut Post.
The coroner determined that Ducsay, called "Zan" by family and friends, was killed by multiple blunt force trauma injuries to her head.
Police have now charged Ducsay's ex-boyfriend, 40-year-old Matthew Pugh, with her murder. Police say that a small piece of black vinyl tape stuck to Ducsay's cheek was a crucial piece of evidence leading to Pugh's arrest.
The tape, Fox News reports, was Permacel Model P-34, a relatively rare brand distributed by a company in New London. This tape was sold only to three companies, one of which employed Pugh. A few days after the murder, investigators located a roll of the tape in Pugh's home.
Ducsay and Pugh began dating when Ducsay was 16 years old, and were together for "some considerable amount of time," according to court documents.
By January 2004, Pugh was serving time for drug convictions and the two had broken up, but Pugh had begun harassing Ducsay, the Milford Mirror reports. In a letter to the Department of Corrections, Ducsay wrote that her ex was threatening her and her family.
“You're gonna regret you ever met me…" states one letter cited in Pugh's arrest affidavit, "I will make your life a living hell."
Pugh was released from prison that August. Ducsay's mother, Linda Ducsay, says that Pugh never stopped harassing and threatening her daughter, according to Milford Patch.
At around noon on the day she was killed, the Stamford Advocate reports, Ducsay was on the phone with her subsequent boyfriend, Jermaine Moore.
Moore told investigators that his girlfriend ended the phone call after saying her ex-boyfriend had shown up at her house. She called back 10-20 minutes later, Moore said, and the two had an uneventful conversation. Moore said Ducsay did not mention her ex-boyfriend again.
At 4:30 that afternoon, Linda Ducsay found the body of her murdered daughter.
Not only did the tape found on Ducsay's cheek match the roll found in Pugh's home, but in addition, Pugh's DNA -- or the DNA of "another member of the same paternal lineage" -- was found on the tape stuck to Ducsay's cheek. Authorities also say that Pugh's cell phone records show he was near the murder scene on the day of Ducsay's death.
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In 2008, Pugh's cousin, Anthony Pugh, told officials that his cousin had plans to kill Ducsay,
Pugh, who was already jailed for unrelated charges of assault and robbery, was arrested and charged with Ducsay's murder on Wednesday.
He is being held on $2 million bond.
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