TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) - The Indiana-based magazine solicitation company for which the suspect in the stabbing death of an elderly woman worked is no stranger to such accusations. Prosecutors said American Community Services is linked to Phoenix Imaging, the company that recently flew at least a dozen door-to-door solicitors from the Midwest to New Jersey.
At least two other employees of American Community Services, based in Michigan City, Ind., have been accused of murdering elderly women, according to a published report.
Azriel Rashad Bridge, 18, of Chicago is charged with murder, felony murder and robbery in the death of 77-year-old Shirley Reuter. Authorities say Bridge had been soliciting magazine subscriptions door-to-door in the neighborhood.
The Asbury Park Sunday Press reported that American Community Services has employed at least two other men accused of murdering elderly women.
An American Community Services representative could not be reached for comment Sunday by The Associated Press. However, the company has previously said that one of those men accused was working for a subcontractor of the clearinghouse at the time.
New Jersey authorities said that Phoenix Imaging was cooperating with its investigation, but that American Community Services had yet to respond as of this weekend.
Dover Township Police Chief Michael Mastronardy has contacted state Attorney General Peter C. Harvey, urging him to investigate the company.
"The attorney general said he is going to review the activities of this company beginning on Monday," Mastronardy told the newspaper.
In August 2001, then 21-year-old Rodger Broadway was arrested in the slaying of a 67-year-old woman in Knoxville, Tenn. Authorities said she had been beaten, sexually assaulted and slain with one of her own kitchen knives.
Broadway, a door-to-door magazine salesman, pleaded guilty last year to murder, rape and robbery in exchange for a sentence of life in prison.
He was part of an itinerant group of salespeople apparently in the employ of American Community Services, although the company said at the time that Broadway worked for a subcontractor.
In 1990, a Woburn, Mass., woman was stabbed to death by a sales agent for the company, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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