Newly IDed Suspect In Cold Case Murder Of Minnesota Mom Went To School With Her Kids, Police Say

State authorities have made an arrest in the long-unsolved killing of a Minnesota mom — announcing they identified the suspect through DNA found at the scene in 1986.

Michael Allan Carbo Jr., 52, has been charged with second-degree murder in the 1986 killing of Nancy Daugherty, authorities announced earlier this week.

Daugherty, of Chisholm, was last seen alive early on July 16, 1986 and was discovered dead in her Chisholm home that afternoon by police performing a welfare check, according to The Associated Press.

She had been beaten and sexually assaulted before she was strangled, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said in a press release.

Daugherty, a mom of two, worked as a part-time bartender and as a nursing home aide. The night before she was killed she was out drinking with her boyfriend, who dropped her off at her house and was was the last person to see her alive, according to the Duluth News Tribune.

Daugherty was married at the time, and her husband was overseas for the Air National Guard. The boyfriend, who was not identified, was the person who requested a welfare check on Daugherty after he wasn't able to contact her that morning.

Though DNA was found at the scene of the crime and officials were able to build a profile based on "bodily fluids found on the victim," the profile did not match anyone in a criminal database, the release stated. The case went cold as authorities worked to interview and collect DNA from more than 100 people.

But earlier this year, Chisholm police approached the state BCA about submitting the evidence to a company that researches public genealogy databases. It turned up an apparent match in Carbo and a follow-up investigation matched him to the original DNA profile, police said.

However, the identification of Carbo as the alleged killer raises a number of questions — as he was only a teenager at the time of Daugherty's slaying and did not know the woman, according to local outlet WDIO. He wasn't even a person of interest at the time the mother was killed in 1986.

He did however attend school with Daugherty's children and lived less than a mile from her house, according to the AP.

Officials praised the arrest after it was announced.

“This is the day Nancy Daugherty’s family and all of Chisholm have waited for over 34 years,” Chisholm Police Chief Vern Manner said Wednesday during a press conference. 

“My mom loved to help people,” Daugherty's daughter Gina said in a statement read by Manner at the presser. "There are no words to describe the terrible holes that were left in so many lives, including my own."

Manner said the family will not be making any further statements at this time.

Carbo is due back in court on Aug. 6. It is not clear if he has an attorney able to comment on his behalf.