Albino Zacarias-Garcia pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter Wednesday in connection with the April 2024 killing of 76-year-old Daniel Frament, a retired attorney and U.S. Army veteran who was stabbed and suffered head trauma while walking a stretch of the Mohawk-Hudson Bike Hike Trail near Menands. The plea, entered in Albany County Court, closes out a case that took investigators roughly 19 months and hundreds of leads across several states to crack.
Frament was found on the trail on April 18, 2024, with severe head trauma and stab wounds, according to the Albany County DA's Office, and later died from his injuries, as reported by CBS6 Albany. Frament frequently walked that path, according to WNYT, which also reported that he was a retired attorney and Army veteran. The killing stunned friends and family, per the Times Union.
A Break Nearly Two Years in the Making
What finally identified a suspect was DNA. Authorities received a positive match in the Combined DNA Index System linking Zacarias-Garcia to a piece of evidence left at the scene, according to News10. That genetic sample came from an unrelated case: it was DNA taken from Zacarias-Garcia after his arrest for two stabbings in Troy that allowed police to connect him to evidence in Frament's death, the Times Union reported. Investigators arrested Zacarias-Garcia in connection with Frament's killing in November 2025, after police say he assaulted two people in Troy and tried to escape custody in the months prior.
State Police Captain Robert McConnell said the investigation combined witness observations, interviews, and forensic evidence, including the CODIS match, to build the case against Zacarias-Garcia. He also said the killing did not appear to be a robbery, and investigators do not believe Frament and Zacarias-Garcia knew each other, according to the Times Union. Before the DNA hit, the case had stalled despite investigators pursuing hundreds of leads across several states, per the same account.
Sentencing Still Months Away
Zacarias-Garcia faces a 20-year state prison term in the Frament case, which will run concurrent with the 15-year sentence he already received for the two Troy stabbings, according to the Albany County DA's Office as reported by News10. He is scheduled to be sentenced on January 28, 2027.
The Frament case drew national comparisons during the investigation. While searching for leads, police learned of a similar homicide on the Montour Trail in Moon, Pennsylvania, in October 2024, News10 reported. In that case, Anthony Quesen was arrested and charged with criminal homicide in the death of an off-duty Pennsylvania State Police Liquor Control Enforcement Agent, according to the outlet's reporting on a reward offered for information in the Menands case.
The plea follows an investigation that, as WNYT detailed, moved from a 2024 homicide probe to a 2025 arrest and now an admission of guilt in Albany County Court. For the community along the Mohawk-Hudson trail, the guilty plea came about two and a half years after the killing.
