The Alabama man authorities said they have concluded strangled Denise A. Comeau to death in 1992 is also a suspect in the 1993 death of Vicki J. Lehtinen, Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said today.
James Earl Johnson, who died in Alabama in 2008, was identified as the man responsible for the December 1992 murder of Ms. Comeau. The DNA also linked Mr. Johnson to two rapes in 1993 and 1995. The confirmation came Monday.
On Dec. 11, 1992, Worcester firefighters who went at 12:50 a.m. to a fire at 141 Austin St. found the body of a woman inside the boarded-up house. Ms. Comeau's body was so badly burned that she could not be immediately identified. Authorities learned she had been strangled.
That man, Mr. Early said, was Mr. Johnson.
City detectives headed to Alabama in October to recover DNA from James Earl Johnson, a man who had died at the age of 61 while living in Alabama. Authorities said he lived in the city for 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s and died in 2008.