Baltimore County police have charged a 28-year-old man with the strangling death of a woman in Middle River.
Police found Shukura Akilah Abdullah Aleem, 21, dead inside a home in the 100 block of Riverthorn Road at 9:30 a.m. on Monday.
Police were approached by Jerry Levon Banks, of no fixed address, at 9:25 a.m. in the parking lot of the Hawthorne Shopping Center at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Kingston Road.
Banks told the officer he had just killed someone and tried to kill himself, police said. He took the officers to the basement of the home on Riverthorn Road, where they found Aleem?s body, according to police.
Detectives believe Banks strangled Aleem after an argument they had during the early morning hours on Monday.
The suspect and victim were staying at the house overnight with the homeowners, who were asleep at the time that the murder occurred and had no knowledge of the crime, police said.
Banks, who was convicted of theft in 2005, has been taken to Franklin Square Hospital, where he awaits transport to a state facility, police said. He was denied bail.
The slaying was the 14th in Baltimore County this year, compared with 13 this time last year.
Police have solved nine of this year?s homicides.
