A cold case killer has been snared 40 years after raping and murdering a university student who was found dead with her hands tied behind her back.
Helene Pruszynski was 21 when she vanished on January 16, 1980.
The young woman had moved from Massachusetts to study journalism in Colorado and was returning home from her job as a radio intern when she was attacked.
Helene was found naked from the waist down having been raped and stabbed to death before her body was dumped in a field.
Now, Florida Trucker James Curtis Clanton, 62, has pleaded guilty to the horrific killing after being arrested last year.
The case had remained on file as unsolved for four decades, with DNA taken from semen at the scene being preserved.
When the case reopened, advances in genetic testing and technology meant the DNA could be used to find a suspect.
Clanton's latest appearance at court took just a brief 15 minutes after his guilty plea was accepted, reports Fox News.
Douglas County District Attorney George Brauchler said in a statement: "Because of the unrelenting and outstanding efforts of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and United Data Connect, the resolution of a horrible sexual assault and murder in a desolate part of out county four decades ago ended within 15 minutes inside a court room."
Clanton was linked to the crime after investigators uploaded crime scene DNA to the public genealogy site, GEDMatch.
He now faces a mandatory life in prison when he is sentenced in April and will only be eligible for parole in 20 years.
If he had pleaded not guilty and the case had gone to trial, Clanton would have faced the death penelty.
A paper quote Sergeant Atilla Denes of the Douglas County Sheriff's office as saying Clanton opened up about details of the murder and showed remorse during the flight from Florida to Colorado.
Denes said: "He said he felt that he had received many more years of freedom than he deserved."
