Man strangles and kills teenager for rejecting his marriage proposal

A Pennsylvania man killed a teenage girl by strangling her and breaking her neck because she refused to marry him.

Christopher Tucker, 34, has been arrested by police and is charged with murder and criminal homicide for the alleged killing of 19-year-old Tara Serino at his home in Berks County, Pennsylvania, USA last week. According to reports, Tara, who is a family friend of Christopher, was at his home in Albany Township sometime between Monday, October 30, and Tuesday, October 31, last week when he asked her to marry him and she refused his proposal.
She told him she was sleeping with other people during the exchange, at which point he told her he should kill her. Christopher reportedly told authorities that he snapped and strangled Ms Serino until he believed she was dead, snapped her neck and beat her with a hatchet. He told detectives he then wrapped her in a rug and fled his home.

The 34-year-old was arrested in Illinois on Halloween at a truck stop after breaking into a farmer’s combine machine with the farmer still inside. Police said Mr Tucker was not making sense at the time of his arrest and he was taken to hospital for an evaluation.
He later confessed the alleged murder to police. He is being held in Champaign County Jail ahead of his extradition to Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, troopers in Pennsylvania searched Tucker's home after being contacted by Tara Serino’s father and discovered the woman’s lifeless body in a bedroom. Her injuries appeared consistent with Tucker's confession.

Tara’s father, Fred Serino, told police he last saw his daughter at 12.38 a.m. on October 30 when she went out. She promised her parents she would call them later to tell them she was fine but the call never came. At 9.30 p.m on October 31, Mr Serino called state police in Hamburg, asking them to perform a welfare check at Christopher Tucker's home. Troopers were dispatched to the address but when they got there they could not reach anyone inside the house.

The next day, Fred Serino got a visit from Tucker's father, whom he did not know. John Tucker said he had been contacted by a hospital in Illinois saying his son was undergoing an evaluation there following his arrest at a truck stop. John Tucker also told Fred Serino that some of Tara's belongings, including her purse and phone, were in his son’s home and that he wished to return them. It’s unclear whether or not the suspect’s father saw Tara’s body when he entered his son's house. Following Tucker’s visit, at around 1.30 p.m. on November 1, Fred contacted police to report his daughter missing, leading to the gruesome discovery.