By Michelle Han
Five years after the brutal crime took place, a 29-year-old man was arrested last Thursday in the robbing and beating of a 75-year-old woman to death on a sidewalk in Forest Hills, police said.
Police were able to link Christos Georgiou, address unknown, to the 1995 murder of Yorkia Gens after he had evaded blame for more than five years, authorities said.
Gens was visiting a mentally ill daughter in Forest Hills on May 29, 1995 when a man in his late 20s approached her near Grenfell Street and 80th Road, a tree-lined block of brick apartment buildings just blocks away from Queens Borough Hall and the Queens district attorney's office and courthouse.
The man punched her until she fell down, and repeatedly beat and kicked her while she was on the ground, Detective Steven Berger of the Cold Case Squad said in a criminal complaint filed by the District Attorney's office.
The attacker then grabbed the woman's purse from around her neck and ran off with it, Berger said. Gens died a few days later of her injuries.
Although Georgiou remained a suspect in the brutal slaying and pleaded guilty to several other robberies over the next few years, investigators were not able to gather enough evidence against him to charge him with the crime, according to Newsday and other published reports.
David Chesney was convicted of robbery charges in the attack and is serving an eight- to -25 year sentence, Newsday said.
Georgiou was arraigned on second-degree murder charges in Kew Gardens Friday night and ordered held without bail. He was next scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 16. If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in prison.
Reach reporter Michelle Han by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 138.