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DNA Leads To Arrest In Sarasota Hotel Shooting Death

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By TODD RUGER

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: June 7, 2008

SARASOTA — Hotel owner Czelaw "Chester" Jarosz fought back when a robber came into his North Trail motel office, police said.

Sarasota police asked for help Friday in identifying two people who are said to have shoplifted at a Bealls department store with Benjamin Rogers on May 11.

Store security cameras caught three people taking the tags off $970 worth of clothes and putting them in a shopping cart, police said in court records.

The three fled the store at 509 N. Beneva Road when the store's loss prevention officer confronted them, police said.

Rogers was stopped a few blocks away and the prevention officer identified him as one of the three, police said.

Jarosz was fatally injured in the March 20 robbery, but detectives found DNA under one of his fingernails that led them to the man they accuse of killing him.

The DNA recovered from Jarosz's left hand was sent to a state lab, which analyzed it against a state database of DNA samples.

Thursday, detectives learned that the DNA sample, along with DNA from a blood smear above a lock on the office door, matched that of a felon who lives in Sarasota.

He happened to have a court hearing on a shoplifting charge Friday in Sarasota.

Police at the courthouse arrested Benjamin Rogers, 29, in connection with the murder and robbery at the Siesta Inn motel, where Jarosz's 85-year-old mother was bound and gagged with duct tape.

"It was nice of him to show up for court," said Sarasota Police spokesman Capt. Stan Duncan.

Rogers, who was released from prison in March 2007 after serving three years for a cocaine charge, was being held at the Sarasota County jail without bail on Friday.

His name did not come up in the investigation until detectives got a call Thursday from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab, police Sgt. Jay Holmes said.

Police say that they are investigating whether other people participated in the robbery and murder, but that the DNA evidence proves that Rogers was there.

Detectives had slowed down the investigation and "were in the process of waiting to see if we were going to be able to get some DNA," Holmes said.

In the absence of a hit, detectives would have restarted the search for the person who left the DNA under the fingernail and on the door.

Rogers' prior convictions are from the Fort Myers area. Florida law requires every felon to give a DNA sample for the state database. It is usually taken at the same time as fingerprints in the courtroom.

Rogers had three arrests in Sarasota County since Jarosz's killing.

Jarosz, 60, a Polish immigrant who came America with nothing 40 years ago, bought the Siesta Inn in 2001.

Jarosz had his share of run-ins at the motel with tenants who wanted to party or fight. Police have been called 15 times in the past year, mostly for disputes.

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