Convicted killer charged with strangling another 'Jane Doe' to death inside NYC hotel in 1998: DA

"A 59-year-old man was charged Thursday with the nearly 30-year-old cold case strangulation murder of an unidentified woman inside a Queens motel - decades after he was convicted of killing a woman in Brooklyn in a similar way, prosecutors said. Jose Velasquez, 59, formerly of Astoria, now stands accused of fatally strangling a "Jane Doe" victim - believed to be between 25 and 35 years old - inside Room 119 of the since-shuttered Turf Motel on 14th Street near Broadway in 1998, the DA's office said."

"The woman - who was carrying no identification - was discovered under a mattress, and wedged into the box spring of the bed, with a scarf tightly wrapped around her neck on Jan. 12, 1998, prosecutors said. Later that year, the city medical examiner's office determined that the victim died by ligature strangulation. At the time of the autopsy, investigators gathered DNA evidence from the victim's underwear and scrapings and clippings of her fingernails. That evidence was retested in May 2023, and investigators ultimately linked the DNA to Velasquez, prosecutors said."

"Velasquez, meanwhile, was being held in an upstate lockup on a second-degree murder conviction for allegedly strangling another unidentified woman to death inside Park Slope's Lincoln Plaza hotel - which is also now shuttered - in 1999, according to cops and online records. That woman was found by a maintenance worker in a filled-up bathtub on April 29 and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Velasquez was arrested in connection to her murder on May 2 and convicted on April 27, 2000, following a jury trial, according to cops and Brooklyn prosecutors."

Jose Velasquez, 59, faces a charge in the 1998 strangulation death of an unidentified woman found in Room 119 of the Turf Motel in Astoria. The victim, estimated 25 to 35 years old, was discovered under a mattress and wedged into the box spring with a scarf tightly wrapped around her neck on Jan. 12, 1998. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death ligature strangulation. DNA collected at autopsy from underwear and fingernail scrapings was retested in May 2023 and matched Velasquez. Velasquez is already imprisoned on a 1999 second-degree murder conviction out of Brooklyn.

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