Man Charged in 2 Elderly Women’s Deaths

HOUSTON —  Prosecutors charged a parolee with capital murder Tuesday in the beating deaths of two elderly women whose bodies were found stuffed in their closets in Port Arthur, Texas.

Gary Sinegal, 40, was arrested last month after he was identified by a woman who told police he also had attacked her.

He has been jailed since on charges of burglary and violating parole.

Police suspect Sinegal in a third killing in Port Arthur, but he has not been charged in that case.

“We don’t know exactly how he did it,” Jefferson County prosecutor Ed Shettle said of the killings.

“But they both died from blunt-force trauma. They were both in their homes, and they were both placed in a closet. They were both partially clothed when they were found.”

Shettle said neither woman was sexually assaulted.

He added that prosecutors would seek the death penalty.

DNA evidence analyzed by the Texas Department of Public Safety’s forensic lab in Houston placed Sinegal in the homes of Louise Tamplin, 81, and Margie Gafford, 86, police have said.

Both were found dead April 22, and Sinegal was arrested later that day.

The capital murder charge covers both of the killings.

Sinegal is also suspected in the April 18 killing of Dorothy Barrett, 82, and an April 22 attack on Brenda Choate, 60, who identified Sinegal in a police photo lineup after she said she fought off his attack.