A person of interest was identified Monday in the brutal beating and strangulation of a Queens mother inside a SoHo hotel earlier this month, sources told The Post.
Law enforcement officials said Raad al-Mansoori, 26, was arrested by police in Arizona on a separate assault charge against another woman.
NYPD detectives now want to question Dennis Oleas-Aranchibia, 38, about his death. Charges against him are pending.
Officials said authorities were looking into him after similar incidents of violence against women in Arizona, Texas and Florida.
Oleas Aranchibia, who is believed to have been a sex worker, spent several nights each month at the Soho 54 Hotel for about a year before her brutal death.
She was found lying under a blanket next to a broken iron on February 8th.
Police said the young mother of two had checked into a hotel at 2:14pm the previous day wearing “unique” leggings, and that a man was later seen on surveillance camera leaving the hotel wearing the leggings. It was said to have been shown on video.
“We have video of a woman arriving at the location wearing different leggings. We then have footage of a man coming out of the hotel wearing the same leggings, and we have footage of a man coming out of the hotel wearing the same leggings, and there is a man’s pants in the hotel room. “There was blood on his pants,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenney.
Photos obtained by the newspaper show the suspect walking on a sidewalk near the hotel wearing light-colored leggings, a tan jacket, a dark-colored hoodie and a beanie hat.
On the evening of February 8th, Oleas Arancibia’s front desk received several calls regarding wellness.
One employee entered her room despite a “do not disturb” sign on the handle, saw her covered in blankets on the floor, thought she was just sleeping, and immediately ran away. I left.
Her body was discovered the next morning after additional medical consultations were conducted and her 18-year-old son filed a missing persons report in Jackson Heights.
The cause of death has not been determined, but a piece of plastic was found embedded in Oleas-Aranchibia’s head, and investigators said the bloody iron was “one of the methods used to kill her.” I think it was one.
The New York City medical examiner ruled her death a homicide, with the cause of death being neck compression and blunt head trauma.
Oleas Aranchibia’s son, Edwin Ceballos, said she was “constantly working to give us the best life in this country.”
“She always had money to cover everything in the house,” he said. “She didn’t owe anyone money.”
Oleas-Aranchibia appeared nervous in the days leading up to her death, her son said.
“She seemed sad the week before (before),” Ceballos said. “She was very nervous and she was worried.”
Oleas-Aranchibia immigrated to New York from Ecuador. She lived with Ceballos and her nephew while her parents and her younger son were in South America.
