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PHILADELPHIA Hours before dawn on March 17, 1989, a man peered into an abandoned Oldsmobile in a North Philadelphia lot and saw a body. <\/p>\n
Police identified the deceased as 19-year-old Ruby Ellis of the 2500 block of West Girard Avenue. A brief news item in The Inquirer the next day reported that she had been strangled, that she was wearing only a jacket, and that she had been dead for several hours when she was found in the car at 15th and Flora Streets. <\/p>\n
Five weeks later, The Inquirer ran an item on another strangling: Cheryl Hanible, 33, of Southwest Philadelphia, found inside a burned-out, vacant bar on Girard, blocks from the site of the March 17 slaying. <\/p>\n
She had been gagged with a sock and strangled with a shoelace. Neighbors described the building as \"a hangout for the homeless, drug addicts, and prostitutes.\" <\/p>\n
No arrests were reported, and the case went unresolved for 25 years - until Wednesday, when detectives using decades-old DNA collected from both crime scenes charged a Paulsboro man in connection with the killings. <\/p>\n
Rudolph Churchill, 51, was charged with two counts of murder and related offenses and was awaiting arraignment Wednesday night. <\/p>\n
Churchill wasn't on any suspect list in 1989, said Lt. Mark Deegan, who heads the Special Investigations Unit. <\/p>\n
But about three years ago, the Police Department received a federal grant that allowed detectives to begin going through old cases for DNA evidence. <\/p>\n
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Read more: PHILADELPHIA Hours before dawn on March 17, 1989, a man peered into an abandoned Oldsmobile in a North Philadelphia lot and saw a body. Police identified the deceased as 19-year-old Ruby Ellis of the 2500 block of West Girard Avenue. Continue reading
\nDNA leads to arrest in 25-year-old slayings<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"