SOMERSET, Pa. — The 23-year-old Meyersdale man accused of killing Justine Marie Jackson, 19, and dumping her body under the Keystone Viaduct along the Great Allegheny Passage trail in Larimer Township was arrested without incident at about dawn Wednesday in Jefferson Parish, La.
Jonathan William Beal, who is charged with criminal homicide in the death of Jackson, was taken into custody by the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. The arrest was made in Marrero, a suburb of New Orleans.
Beal was found hiding in a bathroom, according to Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Ted Goins, the lead investigator in the case assigned to the Somerset barrack.
Beal was arrested after the sheriff’s office and the U.S. Marshal’s Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force acted on intelligence information that Beal was possibly at a female friend’s residence at 817 Avenue F in Marrero.
Police converged on the location at about 6 a.m. and made the arrest without incident.
Following the arrest, Beal was jailed at the Jefferson Parrish Correctional Center, according to Jefferson Parrish Sheriff Newell Normand.
Jackson’s body was found Sunday at 12:30 p.m. by a person walking the trail. She was a former resident of Ellerslie and a student at Mountain Ridge High School in Frostburg. She graduated in 2010 from the Allegany County Center for Career and Technical Education as a graphics/communication student.
Positive identification of the body was announced by state police in a press conference Tuesday afternoon at the Somerset barrack.
Police said Jackson died of homicide by ligature strangulation.
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