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John Carey, 63, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence at MCI-Concord, will be charged with the death of Gravel in the coming days, the Essex County District Attorney said on Wednesday, Aug. 24.
Gravel, who is from North Andover, went out with friends to a bar in June 1986, The Daily News said. A friend gave her a ride to her apartment at the Salem State campus that night. Investigators found her body in the woods on the side of Route 128 in Beverly the next day. She had been strangled to death, the report said.
District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said evidence found on her clothes in 2012 led them to Carey. He wouldn't elaborate on what police found or why it took 10 years to reach an indictment.
"I'm not being evasive, I'm just following the rules" of the court, Blodgett said at the Salem press conference.
Blodgett wouldn't say how Carey was connected to Gravel or disclose any potential motive.
Carey was convicted of trying to strangle a Hamilton woman to death in 2008, the Salem News said. The prosecutor told the jury at that trial that the then 48-year-old man was following a sexual fantasy when he wrapped a cord around the woman's neck and dragged her through her home, the report said.
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