Raul Ayala, former North Bay Shore resident, charged with first-degree murder in Edna Schubert's 2003 killing

A former North Bay Shore resident was charged with first-degree murder on Friday in the 2003 beating death of his 88-year-old neighbor, a 21-year-old cold case Suffolk District Attorney Ray Tierney said was solved thanks to modern technology — and the persistence of a retired homicide detective.

Acting Supreme Court Justice Richard Horowitz ordered Raul Ayala, 51, held without bail during an arraignment in Riverhead. Ayala was also charged with two counts of second-degree murder in the beating death of Edna T. Schubert, a widow who lived alone in a one-story home on Frederick Avenue. His attorney, Christopher Gioe, entered a plea of not guilty to the charges on Ayala’s behalf.

Assistant District Attorney Eric Aboulafia told Horowitz that Suffolk police detectives linked Ayala to Schubert’s killing by using advances in technology to examine fingerprints and DNA collected at the scene of the slaying more than two decades ago.

"They never forgot Edna, and they never gave up," Tierney said of the Suffolk police investigators at a news conference following Ayala’s arraignment.

Tierney gave much of the credit to retired Suffolk Det. Pasqual Albergo, a former homicide investigator who retired 15 years ago, for reviving what had been a 20-year-old cold case. The district attorney said Albergo told Suffolk homicide detectives in May 2023 that he had read about advances in latent-fingerprint technology, and urged them to use that technology to solve Schubert’s slaying.

"That is in large part why we are here," Tierney said. "Some cases, as investigators, some cases stick with you and the murder of 88-year-old Mrs. Schubert was certainly one of those cases."

Albergo attended the news conference but did not speak to the media. Tierney said Albergo may be called as a witness if the case goes to trial.

Gioe could not be reached for comment following Friday’s arraignment. Ayala is hearing impaired and required the assistance of an American Sign Language interpreter. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of the first-degree murder charge.

Tierney declined to identify a motive for the murder of a 93-pound senior who was beloved by her neighbors, who referred to her as "the grandma of Frederick Avenue."

"Unfortunately, oftentimes, instances like this, there are no good reasons for it and we are not going to speculate on a motive," Tierney said.

Suffolk police arrested Ayala on Jan. 16 in Talmo, Georgia, with the assistance of local law enforcement. Tierney said Ayala was a resident of the tiny community northwest of Atlanta — population 257, according to the 2020 U.S. Census — at the time of his arrest.

Ayala lived around the block from Schubert’s home, about 200 yards away, at the time the widow was killed. It was not clear if the defendant had a relationship with the deceased, Tierney said. Schubert’s husband, Charles, had died several years before her death. The couple did not have children, but Schubert was deeply devoted to neighborhood children, handing out candy to kids who rode their bikes on her driveway.

Schubert was a retired supervisor at the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Bay Shore and a member of the Islip Town Republican Club, according to her Newsday obituary. Neighbors said at the time that she fed stray cats in her yard and liked to tend to her flowers and fruit trees.

"I want to thank Det. Pat Albergo for never forgetting about Edna Schubert," Suffolk Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said. "The brutal murder of Mrs. Schubert really shook the Suffolk County community to its core."

Some of Schubert’s relatives, who identified themselves as nieces and a nephew, attended Friday’s hearing and news conference but declined to identify themselves or speak at length to reporters.

"We are glad they got him," one relative said after leaving court. "The DNA matched."

Neighbors discovered Schubert’s badly beaten body on Dec. 12, 2003, after noticing that one of her windows was shattered and her front door was left open. There were no suspects, police said at the time of the killing.

Suffolk homicide investigators documented the scene and preserved fingerprints and blood evidence found throughout the home, Tierney said. Despite an extensive investigation, they were unable to identify a suspect.

But in May 2023, Albergo contacted homicide detectives and urged them to use advances in high-definition technology to take another look at photos of fingerprints taken at the scene of the killing. Albergo hoped that might lead to a breakthrough in a case that had haunted him for years, Tierney said.

Albergo’s call reignited the investigation, according to the district attorney.

Homicide Det. Brendan O’Hara collaborated with a retired fingerprint expert, Det. Timothy Kelly, to take a fresh look at the case. Using advanced high-definition photo technology, Tierney said, O’Hara and Kelly were able to link Ayala — who had been fingerprinted in the 1990s following a DUI arrest in Nassau County — to the crime scene.

When investigators learned that Ayala was still alive and living in Georgia, Suffolk police detectives traveled to Talmo in August to conduct surveillance and collect items he threw in the trash, including a Gatorade bottle, water bottles and scratch-off lottery cards. They took the recovered trash and submitted it to the Suffolk County Crime Laboratory for analysis. The DNA from the trash matched DNA recovered from Schubert’s pantyhose and a white long-sleeved shirt, Tierney said, adding that there was no evidence that she had been sexually assaulted.

DNA recovered from the clothing was "500 trillion times" as likely to come from Schubert and Ayala than any other people, Tierney said.