Alleged 2000 Dundalk Murderer Arrested in Colorado

A 32-year-old man was arrested Thursday in Colorado after police say DNA linked him to a nearly 12-year-old Dundalk murder.

According to Baltimore County police, Colorado law enforcement officials served a warrant to Alexander Charles Bennett on charges of first-degree murder for the alleged strangulation of Heidi Louise Bernadzikowski of Dundalk in April 2000.

Baltimore County police linked Bennett, 32, to the 2000 case through DNA evidence collected from the murder scene, according to a Baltimore County Police Department release.

“This was a particularly brutal murder. She had been strangled and her neck had been cut,” Baltimore County police spokeswoman Elise Armacost said. “The case went cold a long time ago, but the homicide detectives never gave up on it.”

Colorado police arrested Bennett without incident and are holding him pending extradition to Maryland.

Police found Bernadzikowski dead April 20, 2000 in the living room of her townhome.

She shared the home in the 2000 block of Codd Avenue in Dundalk with her boyfriend. Homicide detectives have been pursuing this case since her death and caught a break in the case last September when DNA evidence retrieved from the scene matched a specimen in the FBI’s national database belong to Bennett.

“Without the FBI's national database this arrest wouldn't have been made,” Armacost said.

Police placed Bennett in the Baltimore area near the time of the murder because Maryland Transportation Authority Police found him walking along the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Thruway in March 2000, according to a news release.

“Just because we had a DNA match, that wasn't enough for an arrest,” Armacost said. “We needed to prove that Alexander Bennett was in the state at the time. A great deal of investigative work went into finding that interaction with the Transportation Authority Police.”

Police are continuing to investigate the murder.