Nationwide alert over city murder

There was something about the killing and mutilation of Jean Jackson - and the boyfriend arrested in her slaying - that gave homicide detectives pause.

"It looked like he knew what he was doing," said Sgt. Anthony McFadden. "It looked like he might have done this before."

Because of that, Philadelphia police have issued a nationwide bulletin about Eric Johnson, 38, and the circumstances surrounding the killing of Jackson, 40, in the chance that some unsolved case might be linked to him.

Johnson was charged Monday with murder and abuse of a corpse in the fatal beating of Jackson, his live-in girlfriend.

Police said Johnson had found a new girlfriend on a telephone chat line and wanted to get Jackson out of the way.

Children found Jackson's body Saturday in a lot adjoining railroad tracks at Witte Street near Clearfield Street in Port Richmond.

Her head had been covered with plastic and a pillowcase, and a scarf tied around her neck, police said. Her face had been battered and mutilated in an apparent effort to mask her identity. Her collarbone, both leg bone and ribs had been crushed or broken.

McFadden said that Johnson, who lived in Philadelphia until 1993, met Jackson in Massachusetts in 2005 and that they moved here in September after his mother died.

Johnson had a violent criminal history in the Bay State, authorities said.

McFadden said Johnson recently met another Massachusetts woman on a telephone chat line and developed some sort of relationship.

The woman arrived Thursday on a Greyhound bus. Police said Jackson apparently was dead by then.