Based on positive DNA tests, a Connecticut man convicted of sexual assault has been identified as a suspect in a decade-old Florida murder and sexual assault case, the Hartford Courant reports. Robert S. Mitchell, 43, was arrested Wednesday afternoon on in connection with the death of Cherie Morrisette, whose body was found in a Florida river on Dec. 8, 1996.
The case would have gone unsolved if it weren’t for a routine DNA sample authorities took from Mitchell after his conviction for assaulting a child in Connecticut in 2002. He served a year and a half in prison for that crime and was released.