Jenna Burleigh, a 22-year-old Temple University student, has been reported missing by her family when she was last seen on surveillance footage leaving a campus bar in North Philadelphia with a man police have identified as Joshua Hupperterz, 29.
Hupperterz, a 29-year-old former Temple student, was charged Sunday with murder in the death of a current student whose remains were found over the weekend on property linked to the suspect.
Jenna Burleigh, 22, was reported missing by her family Thursday night. She was last seen on surveillance video leaving a bar near the school campus in north Philadelphia early that morning in the company of a man police have identified as Joshua Hupperterz, 29.
Hupperterz was taken into custody on Friday, September 1, in Paupack Township, Pennsylvania. A body was found on Saturday, September 2, at a property belonging to Hupperterz’s grandmother. On Sunday, Philadelphia police were able to confirm that the body has been identified as Burleigh’s.
According to a coroner’s office, Burleigh died of a combination of blunt trauma and strangulation.
via CBS:
Authorities believe Burleigh was killed in Philadelphia and taken to the Wayne County township, about 25 miles east of Scranton. An autopsy determined that Burleigh was killed by a combination of blunt force trauma and strangulation.
Philadelphia police said Hupperterz, who once attended Temple, told university police investigators on Friday that he “had been so drunk when he left the bar he had no recollection of who he had been with.”
Capt. John Ryan, commander of the Philadelphia police homicide unit, said investigators found evidence relevant to the case at a Philadelphia apartment and a residence in Jenkintown before the body was found and Hupperterz was charged.
Hupperterz faces charges of murder, possession of an instrument of crime, evidence-tampering, and abuse of a corpse.
Richard Englert, President of Temple University, said Burleigh started at the school this semester as a junior transfer student from Montgomery County Community College, majoring in film and media arts.
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