Police arenโt ruling out a connection between the sexual assault and murder of two young women in the Americaโs North East.
27-year-old Vanessa Marcotte was found dead just half a mile from her motherโs home in Princeton, Massachusetts and just days before that, Katrina Vetrano, 30, was found in eerily similar circumstances near her home in Queen, New York.
Both women, who look remarkably similar, had been jogging alone before being sexually assaulted and brutally murdered.
Police in New York and Massachusetts are not ruling out a connection between the two cases.
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โWe havenโt ruled anything out. Weโre going to continue to investigate this case and follow the leads where they take us,โ NYPD spokesman Peter Donald told The New York Post.
Worcester County (Massachusetts) District Attorney Joseph Early Jr also suggested there could be a connection between the killings.
โWe understand there are similarities,โ he said during a press conference on August 9.
โWeโre approaching this from every angle. Weโre fairly early in this investigation.โ
However adding further fuel to the fears of a potential serial killer, was the news of a third woman, nurse and writer Alexandra Brueger, 31, who was killed in Michigan on July 30.
Brueger was shot several times from behind while out for a run.
While the three murders all occurred in separate states, Marcotte and Vetranoโs were only three hours apart, while Brueger was killed several states across.
The police have not commented on a possible link between the Brueger case.