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.
Already holed up in prison for 25 years on the Brooklyn case, Velasquez denied ever having been to the Queens motel during an interview with members of the NYPD Cold Case Squad last year, the DA’s office said.
He was arraigned Thursday on a grand jury indictment, charging him with second-degree murder, and ordered held without bail by Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant, according to the DA’s office.
Velasquez faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted.
“For almost three decades, this female victim remained unidentified and without justice, but she was never forgotten,” Queens DA Melinda Katz said in a statement.
“Every victim matters, and we are committed to holding offenders accountable, no matter how long it takes. I thank members of my Cold Case Unit and our partners at the NYPD Cold Case Squad for their work on this case.”
