A 27-year-old Drexel University graduate was on the phone with her mother this month when she was attacked, sexually assaulted and killed, allegedly by a recently fired maintenance man who had served time for killing his own father, according to NBC 10.
James Harris, 56, was arrested and charged Friday with murder in the death of Jasmine Wright. Harris reportedly lurked inside the woman’s third-floor Philadelphia apartment for 30 minutes before grabbing her while she was on the phone with her mother in Virginia, the report says. Her mother heard the scuffle before the line went dead.
Wright was found severely beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled on the apartment floor, police said. The motive is unclear in the slaying, but a week before Wright was killed, Harris was fired as a maintenance man at the building, reportedly for failing to remove the trash and to clean. He was banned from the property, the report says.
“He's a monster, and we’re very happy to get him off the streets,” Philadelphia Police Homicide Capt. James Clark said, according to NBC !0.
Read more at NBC 10.