SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say a convicted rapist who died in prison has been identified as the suspect in the 1985 killing of a Southern California woman. Helen Brooks was found dead at her apartment in the Mojave Desert town of Apple Valley after friends said they hadn’t heard from her in days.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s investigators learned that 37-year-old Robert Eugene Wortman met Brooks in the days before her murder and had been to her home. But they couldn't prove he killed her.

The cold case was reopened last year and through DNA technology investigators identified Wortman as the suspect. He died in 1995.