Forty years after a Massachusetts woman was fatally stabbed, DNA evidence has led to the arrest of a 69-year-old suspect.
Eileen Ferro was 21 when she was stabbed to death in her home in Shrewsbury.
Almost four decades to the day of her death, Lonzo Guthrie, a Georgia man was arrested and charged with murder.
A DNA match, officials said, turned the cold case into an active prosecution.
Guthrie was a furniture deliveryman who had a job at Ferro's home the day before she was stabbed, Worcester County, Massachusetts, District Attorney Joe Early said.
He was never on investigators' radar at the time of the killing, Early said.
Two seemingly unrelated events led to the DNA match, he was quoted as saying by CNN.
In Massachusetts, investigators resubmitted evidence from the 1974 crime scene to a lab to re-evaluate it for any traces of DNA.
Separately, Guthrie violated parole for a crime he committed in Los Angeles and was required to provide a DNA sample, Early said.
These two sources of DNA provided the break that had eluded investigators for years, he said.
Guthrie was being held without bond and was fighting extradition to Massachusetts, Sweat said.
Douglas County deputies began keeping an eye on Guthrie after Massachusetts officers contacted them in November. Guthrie was not unknown to authorities in Douglas.
Guthrie is a registered sex offender stemming from a rape conviction in California, also in 1974.
He had also been arrested for driving with a suspended license, Sweat said.
