By admin 
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A suspect has been identified in the 1987 murder of a Glendale resident, in a major break in a decades-old unsolved case, Arizona authorities announced Tuesday in Phoenix.
Read more 2 dead in suspected murder-suicide in Deer Valley
DNA evidence linked 68-year-old Gary Wayne Billups of Wittmann as the suspect in the murder of Orison James “Jim” Chafin, 54, a Navy veteran of the Korean War, which had gone cold for nearly 40 years, according to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
But no charges will be filed. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says Billups died by suicide in June, days after he submitted a DNA sample to investigators.
“Because the suspect is deceased, there will be no trial. No one will be held to account in a courtroom for what was done to Jim Chafin,” Mayes said during a news conference Tuesday. “I understand that’s the ending that no one would choose, but for the first time in 39 years, we can be reasonably certain about what happened to Jim Chafin.”
In the early hours of Aug. 8, 1987, Chafin’s body was found at Resthaven Cemetery in Glendale. His throat was cut, and he was wearing only his socks.
He was last seen the night before, drinking at a bar near 59th and Glendale Avenues with friends and leaving with a man. Witness accounts placed Billups and two other men at the bar that night.
After receiving a tip last year, the attorney general’s office and Glendale police reopened the case, taking a new look at the files and reinterviewing surviving witnesses. They learned that Billups, who investigators could not find and interview in 1987, was now living northwest of the Valley.
In a June interview with police, Billups denied knowing Chafin and living in Glendale at the time of the crime, despite arrest records showing otherwise. He provided them with a DNA sample that matched evidence, including beer bottles and cigarette butts, collected from the murder scene decades ago.
Read more 2 dead after boat crashes onto Lake Havasu shoreline
The results confirming a match came back in August, after Billups took his own life.
Progress has been made in several cold cases from decades ago, thanks in part to new DNA technology and testing that wasn’t available when the crimes were committed.
Glendale police said that the case is “a prime example” of the “importance of preserving critical evidence.”
“That meticulous preservation, along with the diligence of our partners with the Attorney General’s Office, not only led to this DNA match but closure for the families impacted by this case,” the Glendale Police Department said in a statement.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Read more High school coach arrested after students find phone recording them in locker room