BOSTON, Feb. 3, 2015—A South End man was identified as a suspect in the 2014 stabbing death of Santo Bernabel, whose body was found inside a burning building, after DNA at the scene matched his genetic profile and a GPS monitor refuted his alibi, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

VICTOR MONTES-SEVERINO (D.O.B. 3/23/94) was arraigned in Roxbury Municipal Court today after Boston Police homicide detectives obtained a warrant charging him with murder in Bernabel’s Oct. 14, 2014, homicide. He was ordered held without bail.

Montes-Severino admitted himself to Boston Medical Center on the night of the fire with a laceration to his hand, which he claimed was the result of being mugged in Chinatown. A subsequent review of the GPS monitor he was wearing revealed that he was, in fact, in the area of Bernabel’s Winthrop Street residence. As the investigation continued, Boston Police criminalists uploaded biological material recovered at the scene to the state’s DNA database – to which Montes-Severino had submitted a sample following his conviction on a 2012 robbery. Severino was sentenced to two and a half years behind bars on that charge.

Severino was represented by attorney Steve Sack. He will return to court on March 4.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.