Crime & Safety
Convicted Killer Offers Guilty Plea In 1987 Herndon Homicide: Report
A man convicted of killing a Chantilly woman in 2002 told a judge that he wants to plead guilty to a Herndon homicide, according to reports.
FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Charles Helem, who was indicted in January for the 1987 homicide of Eige Sober Adler of Kensington, Maryland, told a judge on Wednesday that he wanted to plead guilty in the case, according to news reports.
Helem told Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Tania Saylor that he wanted to plead guilty in Adler's killing "90 days ago," so that he could "get this over with and move to another jurisdiction," according to a WTOP report.
Helem is currently serving a life sentence at Red Onion State Prison, in Pound, Virginia. He was convicted of murdering 37-year-old Patricia Bentley in her Chantilly townhouse on April 6, 2002.
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Helem had filed a motion asking Saylor to replace his public defender, whom he said was difficult to contact, according to WTOP's reporting. He also asked the judge to move him to the lower-security Sussex State Prison, in Waverly, Virginia.
"It wasn’t exactly a plea agreement. It was an agreement that I’d cooperate,” Helem told Saylor, according to WTOP. “I want to make sure they hold up their end of the agreement.”
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Read WTOP's full report: Suspected serial killer wants to plead guilty in 1987 Fairfax Co. killing
Sober-Adler's body was found on Sept. 9, 1987, in a rear parking lot of the Dulles Days Inn on Centreville Road in Herndon, according to her profile on FCPD's Cold Case website. Her vehicle was later recovered about a half-mile away by police on the Dulles Access Road.
In addition to confessing to Sober Adler's homicide, Helem admitted to killing 19-year-old Jennifer Landry of Brockton, Massachusetts in August 2002. He told police that he'd picked up Landry in Washington, D.C. Her body was later found in Mount Rainer in Prince George's County, Maryland.
In 2017 and 2020, Helem had written letters to the Prince George's County Police saying that he had information about the Landry case, but he refused to talk to detectives, Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz said in January.
Detectives persisted and Helem confessed to killing Landry and mentioned another unsolved homicide in Fairfax County. That information led to his indictment in the Sober Adler case.
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