A Hamilton, Ont., man is facing a murder charge in connection with the death of a woman found on the side of a road in Lincoln last month.
Homicide investigators say Jessica Lynn St. Jules, 27, got into a granite-coloured Dodge Grand Caravan near the Hamilton Public Library on Barton Street East on June 8 and was later found dead at the side of a Niagara Region rural road days later.
Niagara police say a 20-year-old man, arrested Tuesday, has now been charged with the second-degree murder of St. Jules.
A police spokesperson didn’t reveal the relationship between the two, only that the matter was now in front of the courts and the man, Pedro Benitez Leal, faced a judge on Tuesday.
During a mid-June update, detectives revealed St. Jules body was found by a resident around 3 p.m. on June 8 near Nineteenth Street and Seventh Avenue.
They also said they were seeking the driver of the Caravan characterizing him as a “person of interest.”
“We don’t know how many occupants are in the vehicle,” Staff Sgt. Andrew Knevel said in a late June interview.
“There’s clearly a driver, but, the windows are too tinted to determine whether or not there is anyone else.”
Knevel went on to say a postmortem examination had been conducted, but was not yet complete.