PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. — A 52-year-old man serving a life sentence in a Virginia prison for the 2002 murder of a Chantilly woman has now been charged in two additional cold case murders from 2002 and 1987. Prosecutors obtained indictments Tuesday for Charles Helem in the cases of Eige Sober Adler and Jennifer Landry.
Detectives from the Prince George's County Police Department had repeatedly tried to interview Helem after he sent letters in 2010 and 2017 claiming to have knowledge about Landry's murder. He refused all interviews until last fall when he verbally confessed to the murder of both women.
Jennifer Landry, a 19-year-old from Massachusetts, was found dead in the woods in Mount Rainier in August 2002, with multiple cut wounds on her neck. Adler, a 37-year-old woman from Kensington, Maryland, was found dead in a parking lot near the Dulles Toll Road on Sept. 9, 1987
After confessing in September to Landry's murder, he began providing "details only the killer would know" about Adler's death. PGPD detectives contacted the Fairfax County Police Department, who spoke to Helem in October.
"The families of the victims have waited a long time for answers," Prince George's County Police Chief Malik Aziz said. "We all collectively hope the charges now brought against Helem provide some comfort to these families."
According to FCPD Chief Kevin Davis, Adler's parents died before they could find out what happened to their daughter.
"We hope this indictment brings some sense of closure to her surviving family members and friends," Davis said.
Landry's parents have also died, but she has a child, brother and sister who have all been notified of the indictment against Helem, according to Sergeant gray McDonald, the PGPD cold case unit supervisor.
Helem is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of 37-year-old Patricia Bentley. Police say Bentley was a single mother who was found dead inside her townhome in Chantilly in 2002. Detectives say she was in a relationship with Helem at the time. He was convicted of first-degree murder in the 2002 case.
The Prince George's County State's Attorney Aisha Braveboy, along with Chiefs Aziz and Davis, and Steve Descano, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County, all spoke Wednesday at a joint press conference about the collaboration between departments that led to these indictments.
"This announcement is the culmination of prosecutors and police officers working together and never forgetting about our victims of violence," Braveboy said. "The fact that we are here today speaks to the importance of partnerships across borders."
Davis said detectives are now reviewing other cold cases to see if Helem could have been involved in any other murders. Helem told detectives he was a truck driver, and that he met Landry at a truck stop in D.C., where he claimed she was soliciting sex for money.
"Now we know he killed in '87," Davis said. "He killed twice in 2002. So we are working backwards."
Landry's case was one of the many tracked and worked on by members of the Doe Network, a volunteer organization that assists in bringing closure to national and international cold cases.
Co-founder Todd Matthews spoke to WUSA 9 after the announcement from investigators on Wednesday and said a member of the group helped connect Landry's disappearance case to the body found years ago.
"Tracie had seen a tattoo that had seemed familiar to her and she made a submission that this is a possible match," he said.
Matthews said police later validated the submission.
With Helem now facing charges in Landry's case, he hoped the update brought some peace to her family.
"I never thought I’d hear that name again because I really didn’t expect anything further from that case," he said. "When you get those bonus calls, you know at least somebody is being held accountable. Oftentimes, we know the who but we don’t know the why.”
Sign up for the Get Up DC newsletter: Your forecast. Your commute. Your news.
Sign up for the Capitol Breach email newsletter, delivering the latest breaking news and a roundup of the investigation into the Capitol Riots on January 6, 2021.