Police arrested a Maryland man suspected of murder, fourteen years after he allegedly hired a hitman to kill his girlfriend to collect a life insurance policy.
Stephen Michael Cooke Jr. was taken into custody after the man he hired to kill his girlfriend, Heidi Bernadzikowski, implicated Cooke in the murder, CBS Baltimore reported.
Cooke was held without bail after he was arrested in Anne Arundel County. The boyfriend and the hitman, who is currently waiting for trial, are both being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center.
"We have been seeking justice in this case for a long time," Baltimore County Police Chief Jim Johnson said in a press release obtained by CBS News. "Our homicide detectives deserve credit for never giving up on these cold cases.
"They never forget these victims and their families, and they tirelessly pursue leads over many years. This time, their work has paid off."
Police have always suspected that Cooke, 43, hired someone to kill Bernadzikowski, but have never been able to prove it. Cooke took out a life insurance policy on his girlfriend months before she was killed. He allegedly wanted her dead so he could collect the $700,000 policy, police said, CBS News reported.
Cooke lived with Bernadzikowski, 24, at their townhome in Dundalk. The hitman, Alexander Charles Bennett, was charged with first-degree murder in 2012 after DNA evidence showed he was the culprit. The girlfriend had been strangled and her throat was slit.
Cooke allegedly reached out to Bennett, 34, and another co-conspirator, Grant A. Lewis, over the Internet and agreed to pay them to murder Bernadzikowski, CBS News reported. Both hitmen were in Colorado. Lewis did not leave the state but served as the middleman. Bennett was the one who traveled to Maryland.
Lewis, 35, was arrested earlier this week in Baltimore. He was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, CBS News reported.
