A suspect was arrested on a charge of second-degree murder in the killing of the mother of a Connecticut news anchor.

Shawn Conlon, 44, was taken into custody in the Feb. death of 73-year-old Claudia M. Voight, the mother of Heidi Voight, a morning NBC Connecticut Today news anchor and former Miss America pageant contestant, the Vermont State Police announced Wednesday.

Claudia was found dead in her home in Windham, Vt., on Feb. 20.  At first, her death appeared to be the result of an apparent medical event and did not appear suspicious. However, the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in Burlington concluded she died from neck compression, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide. 

In July, Heidi Voight addressed her mother’s death on social media.

“There is something I've been wanting to tell you, but up until now, couldn't,” she wrote on Facebook. “I have been carrying this painful secret: My mother's death was not natural, nor peaceful. My mother was murdered, violently, in the place she should have felt safest – her own home.”

“For the last 161 days, the world around us has moved on,” Heidi said in the post. “But my family and I have been living February 21st on repeat.” Saying her mother had been “stolen from her family,” she added, “She should still be here.”

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“There is an emotional purgatory that comes when you must silence what you want to scream from the rooftops,” Heidi said in the post. “How could we write her obituary or plan her service until the world understood the true magnitude of this senseless loss? But our silence was necessary to protect the early stages of the intense criminal investigation.”

Conlon was caught at a hotel in Groton, Conn., by the U.S. Marshals Service, Rhode Island State Police and the Groton Police Department after the Vermont State Police obtained a warrant for his arrest.

The Vermont State Police alleged in the statement Conlon "had been renting a room in Ms. Voight's home, though he stopped paying rent in late 2022 but remained in the house, until he attacked and killed her in February.”

Conlon was charged as a fugitive in Connecticut and is being held on a $1 million bail. He waived extradition and will be brought back to Vermont where he will face charges, police said.

It's not immediately clear if he has retained an attorney.

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