A Pennsylvania man is accused of brutally murdering a 19-year-old woman after she rejected his marriage proposal.

The Morning Call reports that Christopher R. Tucker, 34, “snapped” when he asked Tara M. Serino to marry him, and she refused. Tucker is accused of snapping the young woman’s neck and attacking her with a hatchet, before rolling up her dead body in a rug and fleeing the state.

The brutal murder allegedly took place at Tucker’s home in Berks County. According to court records obtained by the Morning Call, Serino, a friend of the suspect’s, had voluntarily gone with Tucker to his home just after midnight on Monday, October 30, promising her father she would call him later to tell him she was okay.

The next day, after he hadn’t heard from her, Serino’s father called police to report that his daughter had not returned and asked them to check Tucker’s home. When police went to the home, they were reportedly unable to get in or make contact with anyone in the home. Also on Tuesday, Tucker was arrested in Illinois after he broke into a farmer’s combine.

On Wednesday, Tucker’s father reportedly went to Serino’s home, telling her father that he had been notified that his son was in a hospital in Illinois. The suspect’s father told the victim’s father that Tucker had some of Serino’s belongings and wanted to return them.

The same day, Serino’s father reported her missing and she was classified as endangered. When police in Illinois questioned Tucker about the teen girl’s whereabouts, he reportedly confessed to brutally murdering her.

Tucker reportedly told police that after he asked Serino to marry him, she said no, claiming to be sleeping with other men — and commenting that he should kill her. Tucker then strangled her, before poking her eyes out, breaking her neck, and beating her with a hatchet to be sure she was dead.

After the confession, police searched Tucker’s home and found Serino’s body wrapped in a rug as he had told them they would, with injuries consistent with his confession.

Tucker is facing charges of criminal homicide, first-degree murder and third-degree murder, and is awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania in an Illinois jail.

[Feature image: Champaign County Sheriff]