Usually, when cold case investigators solve an old murder case, they’ve received a hit from the state’s DNA database, linking a suspect to a long-forgotten crime.
Not so Tuesday — when Baltimore County police said detectives closed the 1986 homicide of a homeless man, based on old-fashioned police work: Interviewing witnesses.
Officers arrested James Wickham, 60, of the 6300 block of Banbury Road in Baltimore, and charged him with first-degree murder in the slaying of Charles Neeper, who was 50.
Both men were homeless and living in Dundalk when they got into an argument over money for a bottle of wine, police said.
According to investigators, Wickham beat Neeper, but the victim was able to walk off. Only later did he collapse and die a short distance away.
An autopsy found that Neeper died of strangulation and multiple blunt force injuries.
Police said witnesses saw the beating, and Wickham admitted doing it, but there was not enough information at the time to link Wickham directly to Neeper’s death.
That all changed after Cold Case Squad detectives picked up the case in 2004.
Investigators spoke to a woman whose deceased husband had given her information about the crime linking Wickham more firmly to Neeper’s murder, they said. The husband told his wife he participated in the killing with Wickham, and provided details about the crime, which she gave to the detectives, police. Based on that additional information, investigators interviewed Wickham again, and then charged him with first-degree murder.
Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey said the nature of the “additional information” is being withheld to “protect the investigation.”
Wickham is being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center.
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