An Ohio man has been accused of decades of murder of a California woman, officials said, and authorities linked him to fingerprints found in a cigarette backpack in the victim Volkswagen Beetles.

The print belongs to Willie Eugene Sims, 69, who found Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker said in a press release Tuesday, in a car with Jeanette Ralston, 24.

Baker said that when Larston was found trapped in a back seat of the public near a bar in San Jose on February 1, 1977, her body was found strangled and sexually assaulted.

DNA was found on Ralston's nails and so-called murder weapon - the shirt used to strangle her - which was later found to match Sims, Baker said.

Sims is scheduled to be arraigned in San Jose on Thursday, Baker said in an email. It is not clear whether he has a lawyer speaking on his behalf.

He faces up to 25 years in prison.

Baker said investigators had previously tried to identify prints through the FBI database. But these efforts proved to be futile, he said.

Then, last year, Baker said his office “thrown a hail Mary” and ran the print again after the FBI updated the search algorithm in its fingerprint database. The effort was successful, he said, and made a "hit" for Sims, who lives in Ashtabra County, northeast of Cleveland.

Baker told the NBC Bay Area that when Ralston's son was six years old and his mother was killed, he told him that he was grateful for The Sims Arrest.

"His birthday is coming," Baker said. "He said it was a great birthday gift."

Baker said Larston was found dead after her friend told authorities she left the bar. The next day, her Volkswagen was found in the carport area of ​​the apartment building near the bar.

Baker said her killer tried to burn the vehicle but failed.

At the time, Sims was a private army base assigned to Monterey County, southern San Francisco, Baker said.

He was convicted in 1978 for intending to commit murder and robbery in Monterey County, California, in which another woman was involved, court documents show. The Sims were sentenced to four years in prison.

Baker said Sims left California before DNA became an essential forensic tool for law enforcement, and although his prints were located in the FBI database, Baker didn’t receive Sims’ identity until last August.

“Today, forensic genealogy has attracted all the attention,” Baker said. “But a retired cold case prosecutor from the San Diego Avenue office told me that a few years ago, potential print searches have never been underestimated since the FBI upgraded its algorithm.”

Baker also said they rely on a powerful new forensic tool, Strmix, to help develop DNA profiles from crime scene evidence.

The tool uses statistical modeling to analyze tiny and complex mixtures of genetic material that might have been considered unusable a decade ago.