What to Know
- The death of a missing Staten Island woman found inside a vacant home days after she vanished has been ruled a homicide
- 69-year-old Johynita Jordan was strangled in January, officials said; a person of interest was quickly identified in her case
- He is a registered sex offender who faces charges in a different random attack on another woman the same month
The case of a missing 69-year-old Staten Island woman found dead earlier this year, nine days after she disappeared, has been ruled a homicide, and the medical examiner's office said Thursday she was strangled.
Sunday, and police sources say they've identified a person of interest -- a convict accused in another random attack of a woman earlier this month.
Johynita Jordan of Park Hill Avenue was reported missing Friday, Jan. 18, and turned up dead inside a vacant home on Van Duzer Street around noon on Jan. 27.
A day after Jordan's body was found, law enforcement sources familiar with the case told News 4 they had identified a person of interest -- a convict accused in another random attack of a woman several weeks before Jordan died.
At the time, sources said surveillance video showed 31-year-old Linden Beaton -- a registered sex offender -- leading Jordan into the vacant house. He was the only one who later walked out. Investigators had said they were looking into whether Jordan was sexually assaulted, though it wasn't clear as of Thursday if they determined that she had been. He also remained a person of interest and had not been charged in Jordan's case.
He was arrested a few days after her body was found in another attack three weeks earlier, on a woman named Beatrice Kaliku. He was charged with assault, criminal obstruction of breathing and harassment in that case, officials said.
Kaliku said she was walking to church just after midnight on Jan. 5 when she was suddenly grabbed in a chokehold and viciously beaten. She needed eight stitches in the head and had two broken bones.
Kaliku said at the time she was heartbroken to hear her alleged attacker may be linked to the killing of another woman.
"I tell God 'thank you that I'm here,' but somebody else didn't get that chance to live," she said.
Details on an attorney for Beaton, who was sentenced in 2010 to seven years in prison for attempted rape, weren't immediately available.
