Maryland police have arrested the son of a successful cybersecurity executive on suspicion of her murder.
Juanita Naomi Koilpillai was killed at her home in Tracy's Landing on July 25. The cybersecurity expert, who co-founded the advanced automated attack warning system CyberWolf and went on to found Waverley Labs, was 58 years old at the time of her death.
The alarm was raised after blood was discovered in Koilpillai's waterfront residence by her boyfriend. When he was unable to locate his partner, he called 911 and reported her as missing.
Soon after this report was made, Koilpillai's body was discovered outside her home. An investigation by a medical examiner determined that the computer expert, described as "a certifiable genius" by her friend Dr. Ron Martin, had died as a result of sharp force injuries.
Koilpillai's car, which was missing from her driveway when her body was discovered, was later found in Leesburg, Virginia.
A search of the car by the Anne Arundel County Police Department revealed a knife, believed to be the murder weapon. Forensic testing of the knife uncovered the presence of DNA belonging to the victim's 23-year-old son, Andrew Weylin Beavers.
Beavers was arrested in Virginia on Saturday and charged with first- and second-degree murder. He was later extradited to Maryland.
Koilpillai, who grew up in India and Sri Lanka, earned a master's in computer science and mathematics at the University of Kansas, then spent three decades working in network management and computer security.
"To grow a startup into a great company and then sell it to a bigger technology company was an incredible accomplishment," said Koilpillai's friend, Connie Moore.
"But to do it as a woman, to do it as a person of color, just speaks volumes about her tenacity, about her brilliance, about her business acumen, about her technology expertise, it was extraordinary. And then she did it again."
The CyberWolf system, which is used by the US government, was acquired by cybersecurity company Symantec in 2002 with the purchase of software vendor Mountain Wave.
Shortly before she was killed, Waverley Labs CEO Koilpillai helped to launch information security offering Resiliant.