In April of last year, a 76-year-old man was killed on the Mohawk-Hudson Bike Trail in Menands.
On Monday, a man in his 20s, who has already pleaded guilty to two stabbings in Troy, was arraigned in connection with the murder on the bike trail.
But details about the suspect – and the case against him – remain murky.
Albino Zacarias-Garcia is already serving a 15-year state prison sentence after pleading guilty in June to two Troy stabbings that occurred in March.
Now, Zacarias-Garcia is facing 25 years to life for allegedly killing 76-year-old Daniel Frament last year. Frament was found with head trauma and stabs on the Mohawk Hudson Bike Trail on April 18, 2024, and he later died from those injuries. In the Albany County Courthouse Monday, Zacarias-Garcia pleaded not guilty.
At a press conference held after Zacarias-Garcia’s arraignment, New York State Police Captain Robert McConnell said Zacarias-Garcia is an “illegal entrant,” but does not know what country he came from.
However, Menands Mayor Brian Marsh says it is his understanding that the defendant showed documentation – including a birth certificate that shows he came from Mexico.
“I can’t verify the authenticity of those documents, and there has been some discrepancy in some of the documents that he had apparently on his person during an execution of a search warrant and so on, so again, it appears, I will say, that he has documentation birth certificate etc. that shows he’s from Mexico,” Marsh said.
Zacarias-Garcia’s actual birthday was also in question during the arraignment. The defendant says his birthday is Dec. 8, 2000, while Judge William Little said the court had on record that his date of birth is Aug. 12.
Albany County Assistant District Attorney and Major Crimes Bureau Chief Joseph Brucato said Zacarias-Garcia was inaccurate in his age.
“I have multiple forms of identification with his information on them, I don’t want to speak to their authenticity, but I’m going to take a look at that and I’ll submit that to the courts. I do have that date of birth that I provided on items with his name on it,” Brucato said.
Law enforcement agencies present Monday, including New York State Police and the Albany County District Attorney’s Office, kept many of details of the case, defendant, and investigation that led to the charge close to the chest.
During the arraignment, Brucato said he would be using oral statements Zacarias-Garcia made to New York State Police investigators in the Rensselaer County Jail in April.
Brucato disclosed the nature of the statements but not would not speak to their details.
“I can tell you that that document is filed with the court and filed with the clerk’s office, so it is there but it’s a conversation about this incident with the investigator about his background and everything he may know about this incident,” Brucato said.
But authorities say a break in the bike trail murder case came when police got a positive match in the Combined DNA Index System – a national DNA database used by law enforcement – that linked Zacarias-Garcia to a piece of evidence at the scene.
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said Monday the match came about as a result of Zacarias-Garcia’s arrest in connection with the Troy stabbings.
Captain Robert McConnell, with the New York State Police, said he could not provide an exact timeline of Zacarias-Garcia’s whereabouts between the Menands homicide last year and Monday’s arraignment.
“I don’t have the exact timeline in front of me, but I could tell you, he was arrested by the Troy police department for assault for a stabbing incident. He was an illegal entrant in the United States. We believe he was in the United States for six months prior to the homicide in Menands,” McConnell said.
Mayor Marsh says it’s a timeline the DA’s Office will have to put together.
“I can’t provide a definitive answer as far as kind of like what his trail was,” Marsh said.
Zacarias-Garcia was remanded to the Clinton Correctional Facility and is due back in court Dec. 19.
