A man pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder count Monday for killing a retiree in Escondido more than 35 years ago.
Nathan Eugene Mathis, 67, was arrested in April 2018 at his home in Ontario in connection with the fatal stabbing of 75-year-old Richard Finney.
Mathis, who was 31 at the time of the killing, is expected to be sentenced to a 15-year-to-life prison term this July.
On the morning of Nov. 13, 1986, Finney was found stabbed to death in a living room chair of an East Mission Avenue apartment where he lived by himself, according to Escondido police. Money, jewelry and other miscellaneous items belonging to the victim had been stolen.
Though knives, fingerprints and blood were located inside Finney’s apartment by investigators at the time, the case went cold until technological advances allowed for further examination of the evidence. The case was reopened about two years prior to Mathis’ arrest.
Police and prosecutors have not disclosed what relationship, if any, the defendant and victim had with one another.
City News Service contributed to this article.