Convicted killer charged with strangling another ‘Jane Doe’ to death inside NYC hotel in 1998: DA

A 59-year-old man was charged Thursday with the nearly 30-year-old cold case strangulation murder of an unidentified woman inside a Queens motel – decades after he was convicted of killing a woman in Brooklyn in a similar way, prosecutors said.

Jose Velasquez, 59, formerly of Astoria, now stands accused of fatally strangling a “Jane Doe” victim – believed to be between 25 and 35 years old – inside Room 119 of the since-shuttered Turf Motel on 14th Street near Broadway in 1998, the DA’s office said.

The woman – who was carrying no identification – was discovered under a mattress, and wedged into the box spring of the bed, with a scarf tightly wrapped around her neck on Jan. 12, 1998, prosecutors said.

Jose Velasquez, 59, was charged Thursday with the strangulation murder of an unidentified woman at a hotel in Astoria, Queens, in 1998.

Later that year, the city medical examiner’s office determined that the victim died by ligature strangulation.