Philly man charged with 2018 Cheltenham road rage murder after ballistics match

PHILADELPHIA - A Philadelphia man was arrested this week and charged with the murder of a man in Cheltenham Township back in 2018.

Suspect arrested eight years later

What we know:

Cheltenham Police arrested Jihad Henderson this week and charged him with the murder of Rithina Torn. Officials said they identified Henderson as the suspect after connecting a bullet from the scene to a gun used in another shooting in Delaware County.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Police: Man shot, killed in Cheltenham in road rage incident

"Torn's murder was unsolved until that ballistics match provided a much-needed lead for our detectives, and I'm very grateful that we can finally share the news with teh victim's familt that we have arrested Jihad Henderson on first-degree murder charges in Torn's killing," Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said.

2018 road rage murder

The backstory:

Torn was killed on Oct. 15, 2018, in Cheltenham Township. Around 9:30 p.m. that day, police responded to reports of gunshots near Dewey Road and Front Street. There, they found Torn lying in the street. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

After police investigated, they found out that Torn was the passenger in the car with two friends. When they turned onto Dewey Road, another car coming the opposite way swerved and nearly hit their car, witnesses told police. Both cars stopped, and Torn got out and walked up to the other car to confront the driver. 

That driver shot Torn multiple times before driving off. 

Investigators found a bullet casing at the scene, and entered into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, which compares evidence from shootings across the country to find potential matches for unsolved cases.

2024 Delaware County shooting

Dig deeper:

Years later, on Oct. 13, 2024, Springfield Township Police found a man who was shot in the neck inside his car in the parking lot of a Target on Baltimore Pike.

Henderson was eventually arrested and charged with the Delaware County shooting. But when detectives investigated ballistic evidence from that scene, they found it matched what was found in Cheltenham in 2018, and that both bullets came from a gun registered to Henderson.

What's next:

Henderson was convicted in connection with the Delaware County shooting on April 24. 

He's scheduled to be sentenced on June 28, and will be arraigned on the murder charge at a later date.