A neighbor of the man who has been charged with murdering a Temple University student told jurors she heard screaming like a ‘horror movie’ coming from his apartment on the night the young woman disappeared.
Joshua Hupperterz has been accused of killing 22-year-old Jenna Burleigh who went missing on August 31 and then was found three days later on his grandmother’s property more than 100 miles from Philadelphia.
And his downstairs neighbor Noelle Sterling testified at a preliminary hearing Wednesday that she called police twice after hearing banging and screaming coming from an apartment near hers.
Hupperterz lived in the apartment directly below Sterling, who is a graduate student at Temple.
‘It sounded terrifying, almost like if you were in a horror movie and a girl screamed, but it was worse,’ Sterling said, according to the Inquirer.
Joshua Hupperterz has been accused of killing 22-year-old Jenna Burleigh who went missing on August 31 and then was found three days later on his grandmother’s property more than 100 miles from Philadelphia
And his downstairs neighbor Noelle Sterling testified at a preliminary hearing Wednesday that she called police twice after hearing banging and screaming coming from an apartment near hers (pictured is the front door to his apartment building)
Sterling said the screaming started early on the morning of August 31 and lasted for three minutes.
‘There were no words, just screams,’ she clarified.
She was just one of 10 total witnesses to testify during Wednesday’s hearing.
Hupperterz’s cousin Eric Carlsen told the judge he found the 29-year-old cleaning up blood that same day, and said he actually helped him move a storage bin.
Carlsen said he believed his cousin when he told him the bin was full of clothing – and said it felt like it weighed around 100 pounds.
Sterling said the screaming started early on the morning of August 31 and lasted for three minutes. She was just one of 10 total witnesses to testify during Wednesday’s hearing. Hupperterz is pictured in two Facebook photos
Police think Hupperterz killed Burleigh in his apartment and then put her remains into a storage bin, which he transported to his grandmother’s home in Wayne County via the ride sharing app Lyft
The hearing was overseen by municipal court Judge David Shuter, who ruled that Hupperterz should be held for trial, the newspaper reported.
He came to court Wednesday wearing a gray knit sweater and glasses and hobbling on crutches from what his lawyer said was a foot infection.
Police think Hupperterz killed Burleigh in his apartment and then put her remains into a storage bin, which he transported to his grandmother’s home in Wayne County via the ride sharing app Lyft.
Her body was discovered on September 2 inside a blue plastic storage bin and an autopsy revealed she died of blunt force trauma and strangulation.
Burleigh met Hupperterz at a bar in Philadelphia called Pub Webb. She had been commuting to Temple from Harleysville, which is 35 miles away. Surveillance video showed the pair sitting at the bar near closing time the evening she went missing
Her body was discovered on September 2 inside a blue plastic storage bin and an autopsy revealed she died of blunt force trauma and strangulation
Burleigh met Hupperterz at a bar in Philadelphia called Pub Webb. She had been commuting to Temple from Harleysville, which is 35 miles away.
Surveillance video showed the pair sitting at the bar near closing time the evening she went missing.
They then walked together to Hupperterz’s building around the corner just after 2am, according to the Inquirer.
Investigators allege that Hupperterz moved the body twice – once from his home in North Philadelphia to his mother’s house in the nearby suburb of Jenkintown, and a second time to his grandmother’s home in Paupack Township, Wayne County, which is 140 miles north.