Murder, rape charges pending in Philly stranglings

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia authorities say a transient linked by DNA to the stranglings of three young women in a high-crime city neighborhood last year will be formally arraigned on charges that include rape and murder.

Police spokesman Lt. Raymond Evers says prosecutors have approved charges against 22-year-old Antonio Rodriguez. Evers says he will be arraigned by closed-circuit television tonight or Thursday morning on three counts each of murder, rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and abuse of a corpse.

Rodriguez was arrested Monday on an unrelated bench warrant after police said they were seeking him in the deaths of Elaine Goldberg, Nicole Piacentini and Casey Mahoney.

The victims’ bodies were found between early November and mid-December in vacant lots in the city’s Kensington section.