A man with a prior conviction for simple assault in Dover New Jersey has now been charged with murder in Arizona after police linked him to the killings of two homeless people.

According to authorities, the suspect brutally killed the victims in January 2015 and February 2015 while traveling along the Miracle Mile in Tucson, Arizona.

The suspect, a 53-year-old man male with a listed residence in Idaho, is reportedly a transient who moves around the US. Law enforcement believes that the suspect targets homeless men for assaults.

Arizona law enforcement linked the suspect to a murder after discovering the victim’s body in a drainage culvert in Tucson. Police investigators then reportedly found a strand of the suspect’s hair in the victim’s clenched fist.

Authorities found the other homicide victim, also a homeless man, in the desert. He reportedly died as a result of being stabbed in the chest with a knife and struck in the head with a rock.

In July 2014, the suspect became a focus of NJ law enforcement after using a rock to beat a homeless man in Dover, NJ. The attack occurred underneath the Route 46 bridge in Dover.

The suspect was charged with aggravated assault, but he eventually worked out a plea deal with the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of simple assault. In exchange for his guilty plea, the suspect was sentenced to time served.

New Jersey law enforcement also believed that the suspect may have assaulted a different homeless person in Roxbury NJ, but investigators never found enough evidence to charge the suspect in that attack.

To learn more about this case, check out the NJ.com article, “Accused Killer of Arizona Homeless Connected to Attacks in N.J.”