A man arrested in a southwest Michigan cold case slaying was not charged in the years after the killing despite alleged confessions to police.

Michael Leon Curry was charged on Monday, March 18, with murder in the 1986 strangulation of 59-year-old Wilda Wilkinson in her Bangor home.

WOOD-TV reports that a state police investigator testified earlier this month that in the late 1980s Curry told police about his involvement in Wilkinson’s death.

Michigan State Police say Curry lived near Wilkinson at the time of the crime.

He was initially questioned by investigators and was never ruled out as a suspect, but police had to conduct numerous interviews and gather physical evidence before they could arrest him.

Curry is being held in the Van Buren County Jail.