By Mariano Castillo and Marlena Baldacci
(CNN) — Forty years after a Massachusetts woman was fatally stabbed, DNA evidence has led to the arrest of a suspect.
Eileen Ferro was 21 when she was stabbed to death inside the utility room of her home in Shrewsbury, according to a local newspaper account.
On Tuesday, almost four decades to the day of her death, a Georgia man was arrested and charged with murder.
A DNA match, officials said, turned the cold case into an active prosecution.
The suspect is Lonzo Guthrie, 69, of Austell, Georgia.
Douglas County, Georgia, authorities arrested Guthrie without incident following questioning by Massachusetts State Police officers, Douglas sheriff’s Sgt. John Sweat 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 wasn’t unknown to authorities in Douglas.
Guthrie is a registered sex offender stemming from a rape conviction in California in 1974.
He’d also been arrested for driving with a suspended license, Sweat said.
In the 1970s and ’80s, Guthrie was a long-haul truck driver before settling in his current residence about a decade ago, Sweat said.
Most recently, Guthrie, who sometimes used the alias Norman James, occasionally worked in a business called Norman’s Road Service Repair, Sweat said.
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