Baltimore County police said yesterday that they have arrested a former homeless man and charged him in the death of another homeless man in Dundalk in 1986.

James Exley Wickham, 60, of the 6300 block of Banbury Road in Anneslie was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Charles Neeper, 50.

Police said Neeper was beaten in a fight at Center Place and Dundalk Avenue that began as an argument over money for a bottle of wine. Neeper was able to walk away from the fight, but he collapsed and died a short distance away, police said. An autopsy found that Neeper died of strangulation and blunt-force injuries.

At the time, there was not enough evidence to connect Wickham to Neeper's death, police said. In 2004, the county's cold-case squad began to reinvestigate the killing and interviewed a woman whose husband had given her information that linked Wickham to the slaying, police said. The woman's husband had since died.

Wickham was being held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center.