Man suspected in 26-year-old murder case; victim's body found in forest above Azusa

LONG BEACH -- After more than 25 years, a man has been arrested on suspicion of killing a woman whose body was found in the Angeles National Forest north of Azusa, authorities said.

Twenty-three-year-old aspiring model Joanne Marie Jones "seemingly disappeared in the city of Long Beach," on April 19, 1985, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said in a written statement.

Two and a half decades after leads dried up, Stafford Joel Spicer, 59, of Las Vegas was arrested Tuesday and booked on suspicion of murder, officials said.

He's accused of stabbing Jones to death after she left her boyfriend's Long Beach home on her way to work in West Covina on April 19, 1985, officials said.

Though Spicer was arrested while driving Jones' 1978 Chevrolet Camaro days after she went missing, based on the information detectives had at the time, "There was insufficient evidence to pursue murder charges against Spicer in a court of law," the statement said.

Jones' body was found abandoned in a remote area near Highway 39 and East Fork Road in the Angeles National Forest north of Azusa on June 8, 1985, officials said.

"In 2009, Sheriff's Homicide Cold Case Detective Steve Davis re-opened this case," the sheriff's statement said. "He uncovered additional biological evidence (DNA), and along with advances in technology and additional investigative follow-up, the case was presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, which determined there was sufficient evidence for a homicide case to be filed."

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and sheriff's homicide investigators served a warrant at Spicer's Las Vegas home and arrested him without incident about 5 p.m. Tuesday, authorities added.

He's being held in Las Vegas pending extradition to California, officials said.

"The motto of the Sheriff's Cold Case Homicide Unit is 'Time is on our side,'" Captain Mike Parker of the Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau said. "Homicide cases are never closed until they are solved."