An ex-con has been indicted on murder charges for the cold-case double-killing of a Harlem woman and her special-needs daughter in 1994.
Larry Atkinson, 64, is accused of strangling 57-year-old Sarah Roberts and her 25-year-old daughter Sharon Roberts in their bedrooms inside their Grant Houses apartment on W. 125th St.
He was arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court Thursday, where a judge ordered he remain held without bail.
Atkinson was dating the family’s home health care aide, who found the pair dead on Feb. 20, 1994, prosecutors said. Sarah Roberts suffered emphysema.
The aide found the mother dead in a bed in one room, and the daughter in another bedroom with her mom’s oxygen tube and a pair of leggings tied around her neck, prosecutors said.
“As science advances, so does our ability to solve cold cases,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Thursday. “Here, new technology led to an indictment alleging the horrific murders of a mother and daughter dating back nearly 30 years.”
DNA evidence recovered from the scene did not initially link to any suspect, but NYPD Detective Ryan Glas resubmitted fingernail scrapings from Sarah’s nails and a dry secretion swab from Sharon’s hand for testing last year.
Atkinson, a convicted felon whose DNA was entered into a state database, matched the samples, authorities said.
“This particular [case] stood out to me given that it was a mother and a daughter,” the cold case investigator.
Atkinson has three aliases and 28 arrests on his record, and served five stints in state prison. He’s been convicted of charges including drug dealing, attempted robbery and assault, records show.
Attempts to reach his lawyer were not immediately successful Thursday.