Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and Sheriff Scott Jones said on Friday that 71-year-old Phillip Lee Wilson was arrested at his home on Thursday after DNA linked him to the scene of 40-year-old crime.
Robin Gisela Brooks was stabbed to death and sexually assaulted at her Sacramento County apartment complex in 1980.
Schubert says law enforcement officials never stopped hoping justice would be served.
Lee was being held without bail at the Sacramento County Jail on one charge of murder.