Two women claim they were beaten by a man suspected of killing three elderly women and stuffing their bodies in their closets, according to a published report Sunday.
Gary Sinegal, 40, was arrested on Friday and charged with violating his parole and burglary in the attack of a woman who fought him off and identified him in a police lineup.
He is the lead suspect in the deaths of a woman whose body was found April 18 and two others found in their homes on Thursday, police said. All three died of blunt force trauma and lived within a few streets of each other in Sinegal’s neighborhood.
Sinegal has denied involvement in the four attacks.
Karon Benton, who worked with Sinegal at a tire store, told The Beaumont Enterprise for Sunday’s editions that she woke up from a nap on April 10 to find him standing in her living room. She said he hit her in the back of the head, knocked her to the floor and began choking her with both hands. The man fled after she called police.
A second woman, Benie Miller, 61, said she believed Sinegal was the person who attacked her last month when she went outside to investigate a strange noise.
Miller said she lost two teeth and hearing in one ear in the attack. The man ran away when she screamed for help. She said she believed it was Sinegal because he rode around the neighborhood every day on a bike with a child seat on the back.
No telephone listing could be located for either woman by The Associated Press.
Both women reported the attacks to police, but told the paper they didn’t believe enough was done to investigate their cases.
“If they would have listened to me, those people would have been living,” Benton said, referring to the three victims who were slain.
A police supervisor reached Sunday referred questions to detectives, who he said would be back in the office on Monday. Police have said they plan to comb case files to see if the slayings could be linked to other crimes, the Enterprise reported.
Port Arthur is about 90 miles east of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico.
