BREAKTHROUGH!

How Cops Nabbed a Lake Tahoe Rape and Murder Suspect After 44 Years

Harold Carpenter was taken into custody at his downtown Spokane, Washington, apartment on Monday.

A rape kit that went untested for decades has been credited with linking a 63-year-old man to the grisly murder of a woman in a state park near Lake Tahoe in 1979. Harold Carpenter is now accused of beating and fatally strangling Patricia Carnahan in the California park’s picnic area before ditching her body nearby on Sept. 28, 1979. The case initially went cold as cops weren't able to identify Carnahan and DNA found on both Carnahan and a nearby beer bottle didn't yield any hits. That changed this year when DNA from a previously untested rape kit revealed that Carpenter's DNA, recovered from a homeless woman who accused him of rape in 1994, matched the DNA found on Carnahan's body and the beer bottle. Carpenter's was taken into custody at his downtown Spokane, Washington, apartment on Monday, the Spokesman-Review reported.