Lakeland Police Department in Florida recently arrested a former football coach in connection with the 1981 death of his student’s mother. Genetic genealogy test helped the investigators to identify the killer.

Joseph Clinton Mills, 58, was arrested on Dec. 12 and charged with first-degree murder as well as sexual battery in connection with the death of Linda Patterson Slaten. Mills was aged 20 at the time of the woman's death.

On Sep. 4, 1981, Slaten was found dead in her Lakeland apartment. She was partially nude and had a coat hanger coiled around her neck. A window screen was also found removed at the crime site. Her two sons, Jeff Slaten, 15, and Tim Slaten, 12, were asleep when she was killed, court documents stated.

"I saw the crime scene. It’s still burned in my brain today," Tim said in a news conference Thursday.

DNA from the sperm recovered from Slaten’s body failed to match anyone in the law enforcement databases and it was declared a cold case thereafter. In November 2018, investigators used genetic genealogy — comparing DNA samples taken from the crime scene with online ancestry databases, which successfully linked Mills to her murder, Tampa Bay Times reported.

"It’s been rough on me my whole life not knowing who it is," Jeff said Thursday.

Mills was employed by the Publix Dairy Warehouse as a coach for the Lakeland Volunteers football program. He told police days after the murder that he dropped Tim off after a practice session on Sept. 3. He said Slaten thanked him for the ride before he left, adding that he never meet them after that, according to the court documents.

Mills told police after the arrest that she died after “wild sex” but police said the laceration evidence indicated it was a murder.

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