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Rashon Venable
By Forum Staff
A 25-year-old Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to up to life in prison for murder in the vicious slashing death of a young girl in her Cambria Heights home in November 2008.
The defendant was identified when a DNA sample he provided in Pennsylvania was matched to the one in CODIS, a national DNA database created and maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and which contains DNA profiles from, among other sources, crime scenes.
District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant has now been sentenced for the cold-blooded and heinous killing of a teenage girl, who should have been safe inside her own home. This case highlights how important DNA analysis is when it comes to law enforcement. The defendant’s DNA was entered into the national DNA databank and matched to evidence retrieved from the crime scene – approximately eight years after the slaying. My office remains committed to working tirelessly to ensure that justice is done – no matter how many years it may take. I am hopeful that the family of the victim will find some comfort knowing the person responsible for this horrific crime will be locked away from society.”
Rashon Venable, 25, of Mecksville Road in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth C. Holder, who imposed the indeterminate sentence of 19 years to life in prison.
On November 9, 2008, according to the criminal charges, Livingston Matthews discovered the body of his 14-year-old daughter Sabrina Matthews inside her bedroom. The girl had a deep slash wound to her neck, multiple stab wounds to her face, neck and arms. There was no sign of forced entry into the residence. Venable was apprehended in Pennsylvania on November 7, 2016, and extradited to New York after the New York City Police Department was notified that there was a CODIS hit. The defendant’s DNA was a match with the biological evidence that was recovered from the Cambria Heights crime scene. At the time of the murder, Venable was sixteen years old and living in Queens Village, approximately two miles from the scene of the crime.
