A Suffolk Superior Court Clerk Magistrate today ordered a 50-year-old Level III sex offender held without bail at his arraignment today on charges that he raped and murdered 48-year-old Jewell Allsop this year, District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced.

FITZHUGH NEWTON III (D.O.B. 3/26/59) of Roxbury is charged with two counts of aggravated rape and one count of first-degree murder in connection with Allsop’s death. The Suffolk County Grand Jury returned those indictments Monday, moving the case from Roxbury District Court to Suffolk Superior Court, where it will be adjudicated.

Assistant District Attorney Julie S. Higgins told Clerk Magistrate Gary D. Wilson that workers at a Dorchester food preparation and delivery service discovered a female body in the back of one of the delivery trucks early on Feb. 26. The female was “unresponsive, face down, with her clothes on, but with her pants unbuttoned,” and visible abrasions on her face, Higgins said.

Workers contacted emergency medical services, who pronounced her dead on the scene. After authorities identified the female as Allsop, they transported her body to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to perform an autopsy.

Forensic pathologists concluded that Allsop died of “asphyxia due to strangulation,” Higgins said, “including a fracture of the cricoid cartilage in the neck.” Allsop’s body showed signs of “blunt impact injuries to her upper and lower body” and bore evidence of two sexual assaults, Higgins said.

Higgins described how biological evidence recovered from the crime scene and from the victim’s remains was processed by Boston Police criminalists, who developed from them a DNA profile believed to be the attacker’s. That profile was then submitted to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System – or CODIS – a database containing millions of DNA samples from offenders both known and unknown.

At the end of March, Higgins said, the DNA sample recovered from Allsop’s body came back as a “hit,” linking Newton to the crime. Newton had previously submitted to CODIS under a Massachusetts law requiring anyone convicted of a felony to provide such a sample; Newton has felony convictions dating back to 1979, when he was found guilty of kidnapping and assault with intent to rape.

Higgins told the court that Boston Police homicide detectives set out to find Newton after the match was made and discovered that he was already in custody for violating his probation in an unrelated Boston Municipal Court case.

During a subsequent interview with Boston Police homicide detectives, Newton “denied knowing Ms. Allsop and denied having sexual relations with her,” Higgins said. However, the defendant “placed himself staying in the area where Ms. Allsop’s body was found around the time of her death,” she said. At the conclusion of the interview, Newton allegedly asked officers, “What happened to her – she’s not dead?”

Newton was represented by attorney Matthew Kamholtz, and is expected to return to court on October 29.