Armed with an arrest warrant showing probable cause detectives at the 114th Precinct Squad made a trip to Bridgeport, Connecticut on February 14, where they arrested the 32-year old Astoria husband sought in connection with the brutal murder of his 33-year-old wife. Jordan Hawes has since been returned to Queens where after questioning he could face second-degree murder and other charges related to his wife’s death.

 Hawes, 32, was in a psychiatric hospital in Bridgeport under the watchful eye of state police who arrested him at a rest stop off I-95 in Fairfield on the night of February 4, police officials said.

Acting on a tip from an informant, the cops caught up with Hawes inside a McDonald’s restaurant at the rest stop, officials said. Hawes did not resist police who took him into custody.

At the time of his arrest, Hawes was driving a Jeep Liberty registered to his slain wife – the same vehicle reported stolen in a multi-state alert issued by Queens detectives working the Queens murder case.

Police in Bridgeport charged Hawes with larceny by possession of a stolen vehicle and as a fugitive from justice, according to a criminal complaint.

“We knew this was the right guy,” a Fairfield police spokesperson said. “He was the same guy in a photo released by the NYPD.” Queens detectives released a surveillance photo with the alert that shows Hawes using his wife’s ATM card on January 31.

Detectives at the 114th Precinct Squad have some questions for Hawes, whose wife, Tara Hawes, was found bludgeoned to death on February 2, inside the couple’s apartment at 26-80 30th St. in Astoria.

Cops said Jordan Hawes’ parents went to the apartment at about 8:30 p.m. on February 2, after they were unable to reach the couple for several days. The parents found the body of their daughter-in-law in a pool of blood inside a bedroom at the apartment and called 911, police said.

Police and emergency responders who arrived at the scene initially believed the killer had slashed Hawes’ throat, but doctors at a local hospital discovered she died from blunt force injury to the back of her head.

Ellen Borakove, a spokesperson for the city medical examiner, said the cause of death was “blunt impact injuries and multiple skull fractures”. Police did not say what, if any evidence was recovered during a search of the apartment.

“We don’t know what evil permeated this attack,” law enforcement sources said. “But this was the worst crime scene many of the detectives had ever seen.”

Tara Hawes was a teacher at the Aaron School, a private special education school on East 45th Street in Manhattan.

Hawes held a Master’s Degree in education and special education from Hunter College and a BFA from FIT. The young woman was working on a master’s in literacy from Hunter when she was slain, police sources said. A spokesperson for the Aaron School would not say when Hawes was last seen at the school.

Neighbors described Tara Hawes as a friendly, outgoing young woman who cared about the quality of life in her Astoria neighborhood. “She was like the mayor of the neighborhood,” her neighbors said. “She was always there to help anyone with a problem.”

Neighbors said they sometimes heard the couple arguing on the street, but never inside the apartment. The building superintendent, Brian Desi, 45, echoed the neighbors’ comments and said, “All the time you would see him yelling at her.”

Desi appeared shaken as he recalled how he spotted Jordan Hawes entering the building three times on the day of the murder.

“I was doing some maintenance outside the building when I saw him go in,” Desi said. “But I never saw him leave the building. The only other way to get out of the building is through the basement.”