COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A man already serving a 60-year sentence for a 2008 murder was back in court Wednesday on new allegations he murdered a second woman in 2000.
DNA evidence recently linked Henry Sandifer to the 17-year-old cold case, according to Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Carlson, who spoke during a bond hearing Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear Wednesday why it took so long to file charges, but Carlson said in court that DNA testing has improved greatly since 2000.
Victim Angela Kirkling, 33, checked into the Royal Motel at 45 W. 103rd St. with a man about 9:20 a.m. Jan. 17, 2000, prosecutors said. She was slated to check out at 5:20 p.m., but hotel staff still hadn't heard from the woman by 6 p.m.
That's when an employee found Kirkling's body on the floor of her motel room, naked except for a pair of socks. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office determined Kirkling's death to be a homicide by strangulation.
DNA evidence collected from a beer bottle proved to be a match to Sandifer, Carlson said. Recently tested DNA from Kirkling's underwear was linked to Sandifer, the attorney said.
Now 58, Sandifer has been convicted of 12 felonies — including murder, burglary, attempted burglary, theft, armed robbery, possession of a controlled substance and possession of a stolen motor vehicle.
He is serving a 60-year prison sentence for murdering a 44-year-old woman in 2008. That victim, Linda Morgan, was found naked inside a South Side garbage can on Oct. 14, 2008. She'd been beaten and strangled, prosecutors said, and Sandifer's DNA was found on her genitals.
Relatives had reported Morgan missing after she was last seen Oct. 11, 2008. Her body was discovered three blocks from both Sandifer's childhood home and a house Sandifer was known to sleep in while it was being rehabbed, Carlson said.
Once arrested, Sandifer repeatedly denied knowing Morgan or having had any sexual encounters with the woman. When police confronted Sandifer with the DNA evidence, prosecutors said, he told them "just because he had sex with her, didn't mean he knew her."
Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil on Wednesday denied Sandifer bail.
