BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston Police have arrested an Alabama man in connection with the 1980 murder of a 19-year-old mother in a hotel room.
Police arrested Steven Fike, 62, on an outstanding Suffolk Superior Court Warrant for Murder and rape in connection with Wendy Dansereau’s homicide.
Fike, who was serving time in an Alabama prison on unrelated murder and rape charges from 1982, was indicted in 2019 on these new charges.
As 7NEWS previously reported, an employee of the Hotel Diplomat in the South End discovered Dansereau’s body inside a room on March 18, 1980. Prosecutors say she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
A sample of DNA collected during the early stages of the investigation was entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System and was matched to Fike’s genetic profile, which had been on file in the national database as the result of his conviction in the 1982 rape and murder, according to former Suffolk County DA Rachael Rollins.
“Ms. Dansereau was 19 years old when she was murdered, and her family has waited nearly four decades to know what happened to her,” Rollins said. “Today, we have not only the advances in forensic testing necessary to identify her killer but a team of dedicated professionals.”
Police reports place Fike in New England the day before Dansereau’s body was found.
Dansereau’s daughter was just 4 months old at the time of her death.
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