HUDSON, Ohio (WOIO) – A man who died in 2009 is now being held responsible for the rape and murder of a 30-year-old Hudson Township woman and the rape of a 17-year-old Cuyahoga Falls girl in 1987.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, Hudson Police Chief Perry Tabak and Cuyahoga Falls Police Chief Christopher Norfolk announced Thursday that there was evidence linking Thomas Collier Jordan to both crimes.
According to a press release from Yost, Jordan was identified through extensive detective work and forensic analysis.
Janice Christensen was stabbed to death in Hudson Township on August 10, 1987.
Christensen had gone to the Metro Bike Path for a jog and was reported missing when she did not return home.
Her husband Ken found her partially naked body the next morning. A pair of shoelaces that did not belong to her were found next to her body.
Her car was found abandoned in Bedford six days later.
While working to solve Christensen’s murder, BCI agents and Hudson Police detectives reviewed sexual assaults and murders throughout Northeast Ohio and found that the attack on Michelle Puett-Howard on June 16, 1987, bore “eerie” similarities, according to Yost.
Puett-Howard was sexually assaulted while walking on a hiking trail at Top of the World Park in Cuyahoga Falls.
Jordan grabbed her, held a knife to her throat, took her to a remote location, sexually abused her, bound her hands and ankles with shoelaces, and stole her underwear and car.
In 2022, evidence from the attack on Puett-Howard was again submitted to the BCI laboratory and subsequently entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System database.
After the DNA matched Jordan, BCI agents traveled to Yuma, Arizona to exhume Jordan’s body and obtain his DNA.
Jordan, who died in Yuma at age 83, had an extensive criminal record, including convictions for rape, stabbing, burglary and grand theft.
Yost added that it is believed that Jordan committed other sexual assaults throughout his life that remain unsolved.
“Jordan has proven ties to Ohio, Arizona, Nevada, California, Louisiana and Michigan. BCI is sharing information about the case with law enforcement agencies across the country in the hopes that additional cases can be solved,” Yost said in a press release.
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