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Level 3 sex offender charged in rape, murder of Boston woman

E-mail|Link|Comments () July 8, 2009 02:58 PM

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

A Level 3 sex offender today was charged with raping a woman, strangling her and then leaving her body in the back of a Boston school department delivery truck in Dorchester.

The body of 48-year-old Jewell Alsop was discovered by horrified workers in the Columbia Road parking lot Feb. 26. Today, 50-year-old Fitzhugh Newton III was arraigned in Roxbury Municipal Court on two counts of aggravated rape and first degree murder.

He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail by Judge Kenneth Fiandaca, who also kept Newton out of the courtroom at the request of defense attorney, Matthew A. Kamholtz.

In court, Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Julie Higgins said workers at the school department facility on Columbia road noticed that the door on a delivery truck was open when they came to work Feb. 26. Inside, they found Alsop, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Higgins said an autopsy found that Alsop, a Roslindale resident, had been strangled and that she had been raped. The prosecutor said Newton was linked to the crime by the discovery of biological evidence on Alsop’s body and inside the truck. A DNA match was made to Newton using the federal CODIS database of convicted felons.

Newton, when questioned by Boston police, denied knowing Alsop and also denied having anything to do with her killing, Higgins said in court.

Kamholtz told the judge that authorities have shown little evidence linking Newton to the crime, except for the DNA evidence. He said the DNA evidence by itself is not enough to tie Newton to a sex a crime or to murder.

Kamholtz represented another man who was prosecuted for murder based on a DNA match. Kamholtz said his investigation showed the man was in the apartment where the victim was killed hours before the murder, and that his client was ultimately exonerated.