![\"Jihad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/JihadHenderson.jpeg\")
Jihad Henderson (Booking photo courtesy Montgomery County District Attorney)<\/p>\nCHELTENHAM \u2014 A Philadelphia man must answer to charges in Montgomery County Court that he fatally shot another man during a 2018 road rage incident in Cheltenham Township.<\/p>\n
Jihad Henderson, 38, of the 5000 block of Baltimore Avenue, was held for trial, after a preliminary hearing before District Court Judge R. Emmett Madden, on charges of first- and third-degree murder and possessing an instrument of crime in connection with the alleged Oct. 15, 2018, death of 29-year-old Rithina Torn, who was fatally shot during a road rage incident at Dewey Road and Front Street in the Melrose Park section of Cheltenham.<\/p>\n
Henderson now faces a Sept. 16 formal arraignment hearing on the charges in county court. After that hearing, a judge will schedule Henderson\u2019s trial date.<\/p>\n
Judge Thomas M. DelRicci will preside over the trial.<\/p>\n
Assistant District Attorney Tanner Christian Beck is handling the case. Defense lawyer David Scott Nenner represented Henderson during the preliminary hearing.<\/p>\n
Henderson will remain in the county jail without bail pending trial.<\/p>\n
A conviction of first-degree murder, which is an intentional killing, carries a mandatory life prison term. A conviction of third-degree murder, a killing committed with malice or hardness of heart, carries a possible maximum sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.<\/p>\n
Henderson was recently tied to the 2018 fatal road rage incident with the help from ballistics experts and Henderson\u2019s own testimony during an unrelated Delaware County Court trial.<\/p>\n
A recent ballistics match between a gun used in a 2024 near-fatal shooting in Delaware County was the same gun used to murder Torn in 2018 and the same man, Henderson, was holding that gun, authorities alleged. Torn\u2019s murder was unsolved until that ballistics match provided a much-needed lead for detectives.<\/p>\n
Jihad Henderson (Booking photo courtesy Montgomery County District Attorney)<\/p>\n
The Montgomery County Detective Bureau was notified on Nov. 1, 2024, that a fired cartridge casing recovered during the investigation of an Oct. 13, 2024, shooting incident in the parking lot behind a Target store along Baltimore Pike in Springfield Township, Delaware County, was a potential match for casings found during the investigation of the 2018 Cheltenham road rage incident.<\/p>\n
Specifically, two Montgomery County ballistics and firearms experts, who conducted tests that included a side-by-side, microscopic inspection of the fired cartridge casings from the 2018 and the 2024 shootings, confirmed that the bullets were fired by the same gun, which was Henderson\u2019s legally owned Glock .40-caliber handgun, according to court papers.<\/p>\n
By the time of the confirmation, Henderson had been arrested and charged in the 2024 Target shooting by the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division and was in the Delaware County Prison, where he remains after having been convicted by a jury on April 24, 2026, of aggravated and simple assault and possessing an instrument of crime.<\/p>\n
During that Delaware County Court trial, Henderson admitted to owning a Glock .40-caliber firearm since 2017 and that he had never given it to anyone else but \u201ctrashed it\u2026got rid of it\u201d after the incident at Target, according to testimony.<\/p>\n
\u201cJihad Henderson testified, under oath, that he possessed that firearm since 2017 and he did not provide it to other people,\u201d Montgomery County Detective John Wittenberger and Cheltenham Township Detective Ryan Murray wrote in a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Henderson is scheduled to be sentenced for the Delaware County shooting on Aug. 24.<\/p>\n
The investigation of Torn\u2019s death began about 9:30 p.m. Oct. 15, 2028, when Cheltenham police responded to a 911 call of gunshots fired in the area of Dewey Road and Front Street. Arriving officers found Torn, suffering from multiple gunshots, lying on the roadway, according to a criminal complaint filed by Wittenberger and Murray.<\/p>\n
Torn was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy determined Torn died from multiple gunshot wounds and the manner of death was ruled to be homicide.<\/p>\n
Investigators recovered three .40-caliber fired cartridge casings on the roadway and gathered and reviewed surveillance video footage from homes and businesses surrounding the area.<\/p>\n
Detectives also interviewed witnesses who were in a vehicle with Torn on the night of the incident.<\/p>\n
The investigation determined that a dark-colored sedan had had been traveling the wrong way along Dewey Road when it nearly struck a Honda Civic in which Torn was the front seat passenger. When the sedan stopped at a red light, Torn exited the passenger side of the Honda and walked to the driver\u2019s side window of the sedan.<\/p>\n
\u201c(A witness) stated Torn exited the passenger side of the Honda to confront the driver about almost striking them. (The witness) stated after Torn approached the dark colored vehicle, he heard multiple gunshots and observed Torn down on the roadway,\u201d Wittenberger and Murray alleged.<\/p>\n
Henderson then fled the scene.<\/p>\n
At the time, the district attorney\u2019s office released video of the suspect vehicle and offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the shooter\u2019s arrest, but the case remained unsolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the weeks and months following the murder of Rithina Torn, a viable suspect was not developed and eventually the case went \u2018cold\u2019 or inactive,\u201d Wittenberger and Murray alleged.<\/p>\n
However, a fired cartridge casing that was recovered from the shooting scene was entered into the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, which compares ballistic evidence from recovered firearms and shootings across the U.S. and notifies law enforcement of any potential similar results or leads as they arise.<\/p>\n
Detectives then confirmed that the fired cartridge casing matched the casings from the Delaware County shooting that was linked to Henderson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHELTENHAM \u2014 A Philadelphia man must answer to charges in Montgomery County Court that he fatally shot another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46,182,139,28,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-268306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}