FROM STAFF REPORTS

HOOVER—A Birmingham man has been charged in a two-year-old robbery case after his DNA was linked to a sample from the crime scene.

The Hoover Police Department obtained an arrest warrant for Major Eugene Stephens, 26, after the Combined DNA Index System returned a match for his DNA profile last week.

Stephens has been charged in a September 2013 robbery at the La Quinta Inn on Riverchase Parkway off of Valleydale Road in which two women were “held up at gunpoint as they entered their hotel room,” a Sept. 2 news release from the Hoover Police Department stated.

According to the release, Stephens allegedly forced himself into the women’s room and ordered them to lie on the floor.

“Once inside the room the suspect noticed a bottle of Vodka on a nightstand,” the release read. “When he turned to take a drink from the bottle, one of the women got up from the floor and tried to shove him out of the room.”

Stephens allegedly struck both women in the head with his gun before fleeing.

Hoover police were called to the scene and detectives collected a DNA sample from the vodka bottle. The Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences were able to obtain a DNA profile from the sample and it was entered into CODIS. At the time, no match was on file in the system.

CODIS is continually updated with DNA samples taken from suspects arrested for violent crimes. Last week, Hoover detectives were notified the 2013 DNA sample matched a suspect recently added to the CODIS database.

Stephens is currently in the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham for a robbery from earlier in the summer.

Stephens’ DNA was also linked to crimes in Homewood and New Orleans.