Search is on for serial strangler

Homicide investigators now believe there may be a link between two women found strangled after a third woman nearly choked to death detailed her encounter with a man last month who left her for dead.

Authorities said the third victim — a 30-year-old who survived — was attacked in the same lot as a woman found dead Saturday on East Cumberland sometime in early October after talking with a hooded man. They are warning women in the neighborhood along Kensington Avenue to be on the lookout.

DNA evidence will take a couple weeks to determine if the attacker is the same in all three. Elaine Goldberg, 21, was found strangled to death and partially clothed on Nov. 3 on the 2800 block of Ruth Street, and Nicole Piacentini, 35, was found in the same manner last Saturday on the 1900 block of East Cumberland Street.

“We believe that someone in the public will know who this individual is and we’re asking the public’s help in identifying who this person is and also just to use caution in that area,” said Lt. Norman Davenport.

Davenport could not confirm whether Goldberg or Piacentini were sexually assaulted. Police are also not sure whether the suspect intended to kill the first woman.

“What the motive of the individual is we’ll never know,” Davenport said. “Because she did fall unconscious as a result of being strangled who knows if maybe he thought that she had died.”

Restless neighbors want him caught

Three days after the tragic news that her daughter had been murdered and left in an abandoned lot, Christine Piacentini was encouraged yesterday to see a sketch of a possible suspect police released.

“I hope this guy gets caught,” she said from her doorway. “Nobody deserves to die like this. I don’t give a s— what they did.”

The area along Kensington Avenue where Nicole Piacentini was found is known for drugs and prostitution. Neighbors there are growing worried the possibility of another attack.