Amazing that detectives were able to keep track of this--but depressing that he was able to duplicate the conditions so that they could find him (again and again).

NYPD Tip Leads to Montenegro Arrest
February 22, 2007

NEW YORK - A tip from a New York detective investigating the 1990 killing of a Bronx widow has led to the arrest of a man in Montenegro who is a suspect in similar slayings in Europe, officials said Thursday. The suspect, identified in Montenegro as Smail Tulja, 67, was arrested in his home in the tiny Balkan country's capital, Podgorica, on an FBI warrant, officials said. An FBI affidavit filed in the United States identified the suspect as Smajo Djurlric; the New York Police Department said his name was Smajo Dzurlic.

U.S. officials said Tulja was wanted in the unsolved beating and dismemberment death of Mary Beal, 61, and may be involved in up to seven other killings of women in Belgium and Albania. "It's gratifying that after 17 years this guy's in custody for the terrible thing that was done to her," said Detective James Osorio, a member of the NYPD's Cold Case and Apprehension Squad.

After Tulja appeared in court in Montenegro on Thursday, his lawyer there, Dusan Luksic, told The Associated Press: "My client is not guilty of the murder of Mary Beal." Tulja had twice before eluded authorities seeking to question him about dismemberment murders. In 1990, he left the country after Beal's decapitated, dismembered body was found in two bags near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Tulja, then a cab driver living in New York, had dated Beal and detectives discovered bloodstains in his Bronx apartment, said Sgt. Dennis Singleton, who investigated the case.

Then in the mid-1990s, New York authorities working with their Belgium counterparts learned Tulja was living there and a possible suspect in the dismemberment killings of five women there, but he again left the country, the sergeant said. Last year Osorio learned about the dismemberment killings of two women in Albania and noted the slayings "were carried out in a similar fashion to Mary Beal," court papers said. His squad eventually sought the assistance of federal and international authorities, and Interpol located him in Montenegro.

Tamara Popovic, national police spokeswoman in Montenegro, confirmed that police in Belgium and Albania consider Tulja a suspect in the killings of several women in those countries. Tulja's attorney said that he had no information about the other killings.