The man who took Janice Christensen’s life in 1987 was a seasoned criminal known to authorities in Arizona, California, Louisiana, Michigan and at least four Ohio counties.
On the day Thomas Collier Jordan stalked Christensen on her morning run in an Ohio park, the 61-year-old had spent five decades building a lengthy record that mostly included crimes like grand larceny, burglary, drug offenses and shoplifting.
In August, Ohio authorities connected Jordan to violent attacks against three Summit County women in 1987 — the murder of Christensen, and the rape of two others.
At the time, records show, Jordan was on parole for stabbing, raping and robbing a Geauga County woman.
Law enforcement suspect the now-deceased drifter from Cleveland may have left a string of terrorized victims in his wake.
55 years and 5 states: What we know about Thomas Collier Jordan’s life of crime
Ohio’s crime lab has issued a bulletin so that police agencies across the country can consider him in their unsolved cases. His DNA, collected by exhuming his remains, is in a national database.