Shirt in photo is not the actual item worn by defendant

By Mike Newall, Sept. 18, 2014, Philly.com

Jeremiah Jakson, prosecutors say, strangled Laura Araujo - a graduate of the Art Institute of Philadelphia who had rented a room in the same West Philadelphia boardinghouse as Jakson - for her laptop, camcorder, and ATM card.

Then, they say, Jakson shoved the 23-year-old's body into a duffel bag and dumped it and her belongings in an abandoned lot, and then accidentally set his arms on fire while trying to torch Araujo's sport-utility vehicle.

On Wednesday, Jakson, 22, having been held without bail on murder and arson charges since the July killing, showed up for his preliminary hearing wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with pink palm trees and the words, "Crime Pays."

"That's a very interesting choice of shirt," Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni said angrily.

Jakson, tall and thick-shouldered, shrugged. He didn't have any other clothes when he went to prison, so "they gave me this shirt," he said. He hadn't thought to turn it inside out, he said.

Araujo's father, Lorenzo, a psychiatrist who traveled from his home in Oklahoma for the hearing, and her cousin Clara Garcia, who served in Afghanistan with the Navy and attends college in New Jersey, sat in the first row of the otherwise empty court gallery.

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