A Florida man has been arrested in connection with a 1978 double murder in Massachusetts after investigators received a fresh tip, prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Theresa Marcoux, 18, and Mark Harnish, 20, were found shot to death on the morning of Nov. 19, 1978 at a rest stop in West Springfield after a police officer spotted Harnish’s empty pickup truck splattered with blood inside and out, according to Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni.
The two had both attended East Longmeadow High School and were last seen leaving a party shortly after midnight.
Law enforcement concluded the young pair had been shot multiple times in the truck at close range and then moved to another area of the rest stop, where the officer discovered their bodies.
Amid processing of the pickup truck, investigators discovered a bloody fingerprint on the passenger-side window. Marcoux and Harnish were both ruled out as being the source of the print, but a match could not be identified.
It wasn’t until last month that investigators received an anonymous tip that Timothy Joley, 71, of Clearwater, Fla., was allegedly involved in the murders. The district attorney said they were contacted by the tipster who told them a friend, who had since died, named Joley as the killer.
Upon running analysis, investigators determined the fingerprint on the truck matched a print of Joley’s that was on file from a 2000 taxi cab license application, according to NBC Boston. Police learned Joley lived in the area at the time of the slayings and had bought a gun about a month before the murders.
Joley was taken into custody at his residence in Clearwater on Oct. 30 and held without bail at the Pinellas County Jail pending extradition. Gulluni announced the arrest at a news conference Wednesday and said Joley would be transferred to Massachusetts to face murder charges.
Gulluni said it wasn’t known if Joley, who would have been around 25 years old at the time, knew the victims.
“It’s a momentary sense of satisfaction, not just for me and our team, but for so many people who care about the victims,” Gullani said.