TEMPE, Ariz. -- Crime lab time lines and arrest records show Tempe police may have dropped the ball and allowed a murder suspect to roam the city for months after he allegedly stabbed a bar bouncer to death.

Tempe police arrested Amante Evans, 28, Wednesday after DNA evidence linked him to the 2008 stabbing death of a bouncer at a Mill Avenue bar once called La Pita.

Evans reportedly had words with the bar employee Edmund Smith, Ill., after being asked to leave several times and refusing. The argument escalated and ended with Smith being stabbed twice. Smith later died from his injuries.

The suspect at the time fled the scene. Witnesses assisted police in compiling a composite sketch. Within days of the murder that sketch was circulated and posted all over Mill Avenue. Tempe police say the sketch generated no leads.

Police submitted clothing and other evidence gathered at the scene to the Department of Public Safety crime lab for analysis in April 2008, according to DPS Lt. James Warriner.

In June 2008, DPS sent Tempe Police a screening report advising there was usable DNA and usable latent prints to move to the second phase of the process, Warriner said. Nevertheless, it wasn't until Feb. 10, 2009, almost eight months later, that Tempe detectives contacted DPS and advised them to proceed with the next phase of testing.

"Apparently there is a gap in time. That's something that we're working on internally to see was there a miscommunication internally, how that happened -- and that's something that we're reviewing, obviously to make sure that it doesn't happen again," said Tempe police Sgt. Steven Carbajal.

Records show that from the date of the stabbing in March 2008 to the time of his arrest on Wednesday, Tempe police who work the Mill Avenue and surrounding areas arrested Evans four times for misdemeanor offenses and never tied him to the crime itself or to the heavily circulated composite sketch of the murder suspect.

When asked if the murder suspect fell through the cracks, Carbajal replied, "Well, I don't want to speculate on that."

Carbajal said the priority in the entire ordeal is that a suspected murderer is off the streets.