Records of a telephone call between the two men charged in the slaying of an Egyptian family corroborate a detailed admission by one of them, authorities said Monday. The confession by Edward McDonald and records of his phone call to former prison buddy Hamilton Sanchez in the hours before the killings were enough for prosecutors to charge Sanchez in the Jan. 11 massacre, authorities said. Prosecutors are still counting on evidence being processed at the FBI forensics lab in Washington to cement their case. Hair and fiber samples taken from inside the home Hossam Armanious shared with his wife and two daughters should place the two alleged killers there, said John Conway, an FBI spokesman. "Confessions are always great," Conway said. "But confessions aren't always enough to get a conviction. We do have physical evidence and a high level of confidence that the physical evidence will help link them together."
Read the whole article at the link for details of how Edward McDonald and Hamilton Sanchez allegedly plotted the robbery to repay a debt owed to an unnamed party in New York.
Dreams Into Lightning will post any further significant developments on the Armanious-Garas murders. At this point, however, it appears unlikely that any new information will change the emerging picture of the crime, which appears to have been a common robbery with an uncommonly horrible ending.
