Two women wanted for a Maryland murder were captured in Ohio after an unsuspecting Good Samaritan opened her home to them, only to discover their true identities through a quick internet search.
Vanessa Tjongarero-Henderson, 29, and her girlfriend, Samantha Raebel, 36, face first-degree murder charges following the death of Tjongarero-Henderson’s 67-year-old mother, Hilde Henderson. Police discovered the older woman’s body during a welfare check at the Charter House in the 1300 block of Fenwick Lane in Silver Spring, Maryland, on May 26, 2026. An autopsy later ruled the death a homicide, prompting detectives to secure arrest warrants for the couple.
The nationwide search for the pair ended nearly 440 miles away in Genoa, Ohio. Adrienne Behrman met the couple at the fast-food restaurant where she worked, entirely unaware that police were actively hunting for them.
“They said they were homeless,” Behrman told CBS News Baltimore. “They were living in Maryland. They had taken what little money they had and left a toxic living situation, and they were headed to Arizona.”
Behrman initially noticed “no vibes of anything bad” from the couple, describing them as “soft spoken” and noting that “they talked very nice.” Having experienced homelessness herself in the past, Behrman felt compelled to help.
“I just know the feelings deep down, and I didn’t want them to feel like nobody cared, nobody was listening, nobody was here,” she explained.
Behrman offered the couple her sofa bed to sleep on and later left them alone in her home while she attended a Christian retreat. However, when she returned from the trip, she felt an immediate shift in the environment.
“Before I even opened the door, I felt like there was some kind of darkness, like a heaviness, and I could not explain it,” Behrman said.
Her unease grew when Tjongarero-Henderson offered to use a cash app to pay for some cigarettes. A friend of Behrman’s suggested she Google the name on the account to make sure it was real. When Behrman typed the name into the search engine, news reports about the Maryland homicide immediately popped up.
Behrman called 911, and half a dozen officers arrived at her home on June 10, roughly two weeks after Hilde Henderson’s body was first discovered. Behrman noted that at least four of the responding officers had their shotguns drawn during the arrest.
According to the Montgomery County Police Department and the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office, both Tjongarero-Henderson and Raebel remain in custody in Ohio, where they are currently awaiting extradition back to Maryland.
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