A Philadelphia judge wants to know why a murder suspect appeared in court in a T-shirt that says, "Crime Pays."
Jeremiah Jakson is charged with strangling an art school graduate staying in the same boarding house while she looked for work.
Prosecutors believe Jakson killed 23-year-old Laura Araujo in July in order to steal her laptop and bank card. They say he then stuffed her body in a duffel bag.
Jakson told Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni at Wednesday's preliminary hearing that he was given the shirt in jail and had nothing else to wear.
The judge has asked his lawyer to investigate.
She meanwhile has upheld murder, arson and other charges against the 22-year-old Jakson.
Relatives say Araujo had a fashion degree and volunteered teaching English.
"She was a religious individual," her father Lorenzo Araujo said. "Very methodical. Very selective with her friends and the people she related to most of the time."
On July 14, Araujo's body was found in front of an abandoned house on the 2200 block of North 3rd Street in the Kensington section of the city, her hands and feet bound. She had been beaten and strangled, and her body had been put in a trash bag, wrapped in a blanket and then stuffed into the duffel bag.
Police say Jackson also torched Araujo's Toyota Rav4.
