SAN BERNARDINO. CALIF. (AP) — Authorities have finally identified two homicide victims who were found in the Southern California desert in 1980 and linked to a man imprisoned for murder in Mississippi.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said Wednesday that DNA technology and detective work led to the confirmation this month of the names of the slain man and woman.

An archeologist found the bodies in a shallow grave in the Mojave Desert east of the tiny community of Ludlow.

Authorities say investigators linked them to a resident who left Ludlow after the killings and was accused of killing three people in Mississippi in 1981.

The victims' identities were unlocked last year when a woman seeking her biological parents submitted her DNA to a search database.