FORT WORTH, Texas - A man already serving a life sentence in New York has been linked to an 18-year-old Texas killing and could become a suspect in another homicide.
Sam Chinn III could receive a death sentence if he is tried and convicted in Texas.
Detectives in Fort Worth made a DNA match to semen found in the body of Christina Banks, an 89-year-old widow who was raped, robbed and strangled in her home in 1989. Chinn was working as a handyman in Fort Worth at the time.
"Knowing his background, his transient nature and the number of places he's been around the country, odds are that we are not aware of all of the violence he has committed," Sgt. J.D. Thornton, a member of the homicide squad, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "We have been in contact with other law enforcement agencies."
Chinn received a sentence of life without parole after he pleaded guilty to killing two women in Syracuse -- one during a sexual encounter and her neighbor because, he said, he was afraid she would tell his girlfriend about his having sex with another woman.
Investigators in Fort Worth are looking at a possible connection with the killing of Josephine Dove, who died five months after Banks.
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