A tenacious retired detective and advances in photo recognition technology helped Suffolk County cops make an arrest in the brutal cold case killing of a beloved 88-year-old widow 21 years ago, prosecutors announced Friday.
Raul Ayala, 51, was indicted for the murder of his then-neighbor Edna Shubert, whose body was discovered brutally beaten to death in her bedroom on Dec. 12, 2003, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
“A shoe print impression was neatly visible on Ms. Schubert’s neck, face in a herringbone pattern,” said Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Eric Abouladfia, adding the 93 pound woman’s cause of death was “blunt force trauma.”
“An autopsy later revealed that Ms. Schubert sustained extensive facial fractures, as well fractures to her sternum, ribs, thyroid bone, and thyroid cartilage. She also sustained a laceration to [her] collateral artery.”
Ayala was arrested in Talmo, Georgia, where he had been living, on January 16.
During a packed arraignment Friday afternoon where the suspect was remanded into custody, the now deaf defendant needed a sign language interpreter, according to lawyer Christopher Gioe.
As a 29-year-old, Ayala lived merely 200 yards away from Schubert, around the corner from her home, and was believed to be unemployed then.
Tierney presented photos of Schubert’s house being broken into through a window and her front door left wide open all those years ago.
The DA, who posted on X that this is “one of Suffolk County’s most brutal cold cases,” said there is no evidence of a relationship between the two.
Abouladfia said that the case had a “breakthrough” in 2023 at the hands of Pasquale Albergo, a former Suffolk homicide detective “who never stopped thinking about this case … with the hopes that advances in technology would solve the murder that he never forgot.”
Ultimately, detectives located Ayala’s fingerprints at the home by taking a new picture of a dated crime scene photo.
The new image, which was analyzed using modern technology, confirmed that Alaya’s left thumbprint was on the blinds of the broken window, prosecutors said.
Once input into a database, the suspect appeared to have had a DUI in Nassau County in 1995, and the new evidence led to blood testing on pantyhose and a white shirt left at the home.
It contained Schubert’s DNA and that of a then-unknown assailant, according to the DA’s office.
Suffolk County investigators retrieved DNA from Ayala to test it against the blood found on Shubert’s clothing after traveling down to Georgia.
“After surveilling this defendant for some time in Georgia, this defendant discarded multiple lottery scratch-off tickets and left bottles, including one Gatorade bottle,” Abouladfia said.
“DNA from inside the cap of that Gatorade bottle confirm that this defendant was the source of that unknown DNA profile.”
Gioe, however, maintains his client’s innocence.
“I understand the prosecution has a position with respect to how strong their cases is, but the only thing I’ve heard about is the fingerprint and a piece of DNA,” he said.
In Riverhead court, Schubert’s nephew said the entire situation was “surreal,” and her niece added, “We’re just glad that they found him.”
Tierney also praised the victim, calling her “the grandma of the neighborhood.”
“She was retired from the Department of Motor Vehicles, and although she was a widow and had no children of her own, all of those children who were fortunate enough to live in that neighborhood — they considered them to be her children. And she looked after those kids.”
The investigation was handled by Suffolk’s newly formed cold case squad, which was responsible for the apprehension of Gilgo Beach killer suspect Rex Huermann of Massapequa Park.
