DNA, genealogy leads to suspect in 1976 killing near LA

May 31 (UPI) -- California authorities say they've used advances in genealogy and DNA technology to crack a 43-year-old murder case.

Police said they arrested Eddie Lee Anderson Thursday for the 1976 death of Leslie Penrod Harris -- a case that waited more than four decades for a breakthrough. The former U.S. Marine was apprehended in Louisiana, officials said.

Investigators said they had questioned Anderson in New Orleans and obtained DNA samples. His extradition to California is pending.

Anderson's arrest came almost 43 years to the day Harris disappeared in Costa Mesa, Calif., about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Harris, 30, disappeared on May 17, 1976, after having dinner with her husband at a Costa Mesa restaurant. Her body was found hours later about five miles away in Irvine. Officials said she'd just moved to Orange County at the time of her death.

Harris was found near the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, an area investigators said would've been unfamiliar to civilians. Despite the fact investigators immediately suspected a military connection, they were never able to identify a suspect and the case went cold. Anderson was stationed at El Toro in the early 1970s and lived less than a mile from the restaurant where Harris was last seen.

Authorities said DNA found at the crime scene had been tested twice before, in 1997 and 2016, but they did not point to any suspect. Earlier this year, an Orange County Sheriff's Department task force and FBI agents began using new advances in DNA technology that led them to Anderson.

Investigators have not yet identified a motive, and it wasn't immediately known when Anderson could be returned to California.

Genealogy and DNA technology is also how California investigators identified a suspect in the Golden State Killer case last year -- and authorities in Northern California are hoping the method will identify the Zodiac killer, who terrorized the Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s.