Arrest made in connection to decades-old Massachusetts double murder case

(CNN) — Forty-six years after a double homicide case in western Massachusetts went cold, an unexpected tip has led to an arrest, officials announced Wednesday.

Authorities charged 71-year-old Timothy Joley with two counts of murder on October 29 in connection to the 1978 deaths of Theresa Marcoux, 18, and Mark Harnish, 20.

Marcoux and Harnish were last seen leaving a friend’s party in the early hours of November 17, 1978.

Two days later, a police officer found Harnish’s green Dodge pickup truck parked at a rest stop in West Springfield. The window on the driver’s side was damaged and there was blood in and around the vehicle. The officer found the two victims’ remains over a guardrail not far from the truck, Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said during a news conference Wednesday.

An autopsy determined both victims had died of multiple gunshot wounds, and a ballistics report showed all shots had been fired from the same gun. Investigators concluded Marcoux and Harnish had been shot dead in the passenger compartment of the truck before their bodies were moved to the guardrail.

A witness who lived nearby reported hearing multiple gunshots at around 4 a.m., Gulluni said. Police never recovered a gun.

Investigators at the time found a fingerprint on the passenger vent window of the pickup truck that did not belong to Marcoux or Harnish, Gulluni said. It was entered into the Massachusetts Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It was also manually compared to around 70,000 known fingerprints, he said.

No identification was made, and the case went cold.

A break in the case came in October, when the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office received a call naming Joley as a potential person of interest. Investigators found that Joley, who resides in Clearwater, Florida, lived in Springfield, Massachusetts, around the time of the killings.

Investigators obtained a fingerprint identification card for Joley from the Springfield Police Department, which had it on file after he had been fingerprinted in 2000 for a taxicab license. A comparative analysis verified Joley’s fingerprint matched the one recovered from the murder site, Gulluni said.

“Investigators also learned that Joley was a licensed gun owner in November of 1978, and that he purchased a Colt handgun approximately one month before the murders,” Gulluni said.

The Springfield District Court issued a two-count murder complaint and arrest warrant on October 29, and authorities arrested Joley at his home in Clearwater on October 30. He is being held without bond at the Pinellas County Jail and will be moved to Massachusetts in the coming weeks, according to Gulluni.

Joley has not publicly commented on his arrest, and it is unclear whether he has an attorney.

Joley does not have a significant criminal record, the district attorney’s office said, and investigators are unaware of any motive or connection between the suspect and the victims.

Gulluni addressed members from Marcoux and Harnish’s family present at the news conference.

“I admire and respect you for your patience, resolve and the faith that I know you’ve maintained over these many years. I thank you for being here today,” he said. “While we may have crested a hill today and we can see justice in the distance, there are many more uphill battles ahead.”

He said both victims’ parents are now dead.

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