(MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md.) — Two women wanted in Maryland for allegedly killing the mother of one of the suspects were captured in Ohio after an individual who offered to help them realized from media coverage that they were wanted for murder, authorities said.
The arrests came nearly three weeks after the victim, 67-year-old Hilde Henderson, is believed to have been killed at her apartment at a senior living community in Silver Spring, Maryland, authorities said.
Officers conducting a welfare check on May 26 found Henderson dead from blunt force trauma, according to the Montgomery County Police Department. She is believed to have been dead for four days, police said.
The victim’s daughter, 29-year-old Vanessa Tjongarero-Henderson of Clarksburg, and the daughter’s girlfriend, 36-year-old Samantha Raebel of Phoenix, were subsequently identified as suspects in the homicide, police said. Police obtained an arrest warrant charging them both with first-degree murder and released their photos amid the search for the suspects.
Following a nationwide search, the two were ultimately arrested Wednesday in Genoa, Ohio, thanks to a local tip, police said.
A woman in Genoa unwittingly offered to help the couple, until she and her friend grew suspicious and learned of the ongoing manhunt by searching one of their names online, according to ABC Toledo affiliate WTVG.
Adrienne Behrman told WTVG that the suspects came into her workplace and told her they were homeless, so she offered to help and invited them to stay at her apartment.
“I’ve been down and out myself — homeless, without money, you know, just not wanting to be a charity case or anything like that, and I just felt like I was led to help them,” Behrman told the station.
Behrman recounted, though, that the more questions she asked them about where they were from and where they wanted to go, “things were not adding up.”
She told her concerns to a friend, Nikki Peters, who said she noticed that the last name of one of the suspects from a Cash App payment request for cigarettes didn’t match the name she had been told, WTVG reported.
“That didn’t make sense to me, because it was still Vanessa, but a different last name,” Peters told WTVG.
While searching Tjongarero-Henderson’s name online, Peters said she found wanted posts for the two women, WTVG reported.
“I almost passed out,” Peters told the station. “[Behrman] was cool, calm and collected, but I almost passed out.”
“That didn’t make sense to me, because it was still Vanessa, but a different last name,” Peters told WTVG.
While searching Tjongarero-Henderson’s name online, Peters said she found wanted posts for the two women, WTVG reported.
“I almost passed out,” Peters told the station. “[Behrman] was cool, calm and collected, but I almost passed out.”
Behrman said she called 911, WTVG reported.
“That orchestrated the whole thing the way that it needed to be done in order for them to be apprehended and no one else to be hurt,” Behrman told the station.
Tjongarero-Henderson and Raebel are being held at the Ottawa County Detention Center awaiting extradition to Maryland, authorities said.
Police have not released details on what evidence led them to identify the couple as suspects in the case.
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