Philadelphia police say a 22-year-old woman was found strangled in an apartment in Juniata not far from where two other women met the same fate.
Investigators say Allison Edwards of Levittown was found in an apartment located at on the 3800 block of Glendale Street Friday night. The apartment is about two miles from the Kensington area where two other women were sexually assaulted and strangled in November.
A man who lives in the apartment discovered Edwards’ body and called police thinking she overdosed on drugs, according to investigators. The medical examiner later ruled the death was caused by strangulation.
Karen Emery, Edwards’ mother, said her daughter battled a heroin addiction but had been sober for six months. She says Allison started using drugs again days before her death.
“Yeah, I could have locked her up in her bedroom, then she’d get loose and do the same thing anyway,” Emery told NBC Philadelphia. “I keep waiting for her to walk through the front door, like this is a nightmare I am going to wake up from.”
Emery says on Wednesday her daughter told her she was going to do drugs one last time. She got a voice message from the corner's office Friday telling her to contact them.
“The worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Emery said. ”She could have gotten better. She was a fighter. She had a slip but that didn’t mean she deserved to die.”
Police are trying to determine if Edward's death is linked to two other strangulation deaths in Kensington. The partially clothed body of 35-year-old Nicole Piacentini was found in the rear of an abandoned building on Nov. 13. The half-naked body of 21-year-old nursing student Elaine Goldberg was found in a trash-strewn lot about a half-mile away on Nov. 3.
Edwards, a former high school track star and cheerleader, leaves behind a 5-year-old daughter, according to her mother.
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