Manuel Corona/Courtesy AZ Dept. of CorrectionsPHOENIX (CBS5) -
A man in custody of the Arizona Department of Corrections in Tucson has been arrested in a 33-year-old cold case, Phoenix police said.
Manuel Corona, 71, was booked into the Maricopa County Jail on Feb. 2 and charged with the murder of 57-year-old John Bryant.
Bryant was stabbed to death in the roadway at 321 E. Clarendon, during a robbery of his vehicle. The case was worked extensively by detectives at the time, but ultimately the case went cold.
Last spring, the Cold Case Squad reopened the case. They were able to review the investigation after receiving funding as part of the 2010-2011 ARRA Governor's Public Safety Stabilization Program Grant.
The grant allowed the team the opportunity to review all of the unsolved cases from the 1950s through the 1970s, as well as make strong progress on cases from the 1990s, said Sgt. Tommy Thompson of the Phoenix Police Department.
While working the case, detectives were able to take evidence obtained by investigators during the original investigation 33 years ago and submit it for testing with technology that did not exist back then, Thompson said. Through this process, a forensic hit pointed investigators to Corona who was serving time in the Arizona Department of Corrections for unrelated charges.
Corona was 37 years old when the stabbing took place.
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