Charles Gary Sullivan was extradited to Nevada from Arizona on Friday, where he was arrested and charged with murdering Julia Woodward in 1979.
This is one of the last arrests made possible by advances in DNA technology, decades after the commission of crimes.
Woodward's body was found on March 25, 1979 in Hungry Valley, about 15 km north of Reno, according to the sheriff's office. The cause of death was blunt trauma.
Her parents told investigators she was living in San Rafael, California, before going on a job search in the Lake Tahoe / Reno area, officials said. It was last seen alive in California on February 1, 1979.
Biological evidence identified Sullivan as a possible suspect in this case. In August, the Nevada Attorney General was indicted.
Technological advances are leading to more and more arrests of people without trial. The most famous is probably the arrest in the Golden State Killer case, in April 2018, where investigators used DNA and a free genealogy database to arrest Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who allegedly killed 12 people and raped more than 50 women in the 1970s and 1980s.
