The DNA evidence that connected him to the crime was obtained by getting the man to lick an envelope, police and prosecutors said.

John Nicholas Athan, 35, owner of a small construction company in Palisades Park, N.J., was arrested in that state Tuesday, said Dan Donohoe, a spokesman for the King County prosecutor's office.

Athan faced a court hearing in New Jersey for extradition proceedings Wednesday and was fighting his return to Seattle, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reported. Prosecutors in Seattle asked that bail be set at $2.5 million.

He is charged with first-degree murder for the strangling of 13-year-old Kristen Sumstad (pictured, left), whose 87-pound body was found nude from the waist down in a cardboard TV box behind a store in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood on Nov. 12, 1982.

Victim's Sister Stunned At Arrest

Athan, 14 at the time, reportedly was seen pushing a hand truck and a large box down a street four blocks away the night before Sumstad's body was found, police Detective Gregg Mixell wrote in an affidavit filed Tuesday in King County Superior Court.

When questioned, Athan, a friend of Sumstad's sister, told investigators he had used the hand truck to steal firewood from his neighbors. Police lacked evidence to prosecute.

Ten years later, scientists in the Washington State Patrol crime laboratory tried unsuccessfully to extract a DNA "fingerprint" from sperm found in Sumstad's body. By last year, forensic techniques had advanced to the point that a second attempt succeeded.

Investigators ran the results through state and federal databanks of felons, but none contained Athan and no match was found.

Detectives Richard Gagnon and Linda Diaz then mailed something to Athan in New Jersey with a letter or form that he signed, sealed in an envelope and mailed back to Seattle. At the crime lab, DNA from the envelope flap was found to match the murder evidence.

Seattle police spokesman Duane Fish would not give other details on the ruse Tuesday but said the letter "was obtained legally."