Queens man sentenced for cold case killing solved with genetic tech
“After 42 years, a veteran of the First World War gets justice,” said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz of Martin Motta's conviction for the 1976 killing of 81-year-old George Clarence Seitz. Credit: Charles Eckert
A Queens man who last month admitted killing a retired World War I veteran more than 46 years ago and burying his body was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday in a case that employed the use of genetic genealogy for the first time to solve a crime in New York City, officials said.
Martin Motta, 75, of Jamaica, pleaded guilty in October to the 1976 killing of Army veteran George Clarence Seitz, 81, of Queens, in a robbery attempt gone awry, police said. Seitz disappeared on Dec. 10, 1976, after leaving his Jamaica home to get a haircut at a barbershop once run by Motta. Seitz was known to carry large sums of money on a regular basis, authorities said.
Motta killed Seitz by stabbing him in the head. He then took as much as $8,000 from Seitz's body before dismembering and burying him, according to investigators.
Seitz’s body went undiscovered for decades until police received a tip from a person who had witnessed the crime and finally came forward with information about where investigators could find him, officials said. Seitz's dismembered, skeletonized remains were found in 2019 under concrete slabs in the backyard of a Richmond Hill house. With the help of FBI genetic genealogists, Queens prosecutors and police were able to identify Seitz’s remains and corroborate the story of the eyewitness.
“After 42 years, a veteran of the First World War gets justice,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement after Motta's sentencing. “The successes of modern technology and forensics made it possible for us to not only identify the bones of the victim but also to help find any witnesses.”
Motta's defense attorney, Russell Rothberg, did not immediately return a call requesting comment.
The genetic genealogy method has become a sought after forensic technique for police and prosecutors facing tough cases where crime victims are unidentified, such as in the case of the Gilgo Beach serial killings. In the case of Seitz, a DNA profile from his bones was uploaded to various law enforcement databases but no match was found. New York investigators then turned to a private lab to develop a profile that the FBI was able to use with investigative genetic genealogy to develop leads to relatives of Seitz and then confirm the identity of the remains.
While the Seitz case is the first homicide to be solved in New York City through the genealogy technique, earlier this year Suffolk County Police and District Attorney Ray Tierney announced they used it to identify the deceased killer of Eve Wilkowitz, a Bay Shore woman who was sexually assaulted and strangled in 1980. The Wilkowitz case was the first such use of genetic genealogy in New York State to solve a homicide.
Suffolk police have also partnered with the FBI to use genetic genealogy in the Gilgo Beach serial killer case. In May 2020, officials announced that the Gilgo victim known as “Jane Doe 6” had been identified through genealogy as being Valerie Mack of New Jersey.
Anthony M. DeStefano has been a reporter for Newsday since 1986 and covers law enforcement, criminal justice and legal affairs from its New York City offices.
