GENESEE COUNTY (WJRT) -
(09/13/12) - Matthew Alder now faces charges in the 1993 murder of 19-year-old Wanda Musk in Genesee Township.
Alder, 42, is serving life in prison for a 1994 Macomb County murder. Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton says some of the circumstances are eerily similar.
Leyton announced the charges, in the Musk case, at a news conference Thursday morning. A DNA match led investigators to Alder, Leyton says.
As part of a new law in Michigan, inmate samples are now mandatory.
Samples only recently collected are still making their way through the system.
"I'm hopeful this is the beginning of some closure for the family," he says.
Musk's body was found nude and beaten, in the 7000 block of Vassar Road, by a newspaper delivery man Nov. 14.
The bubbly, budding artist had been working the overnight shift at a gas station. She was a Mott Community College student.
A witness saw her being led out of the store, about one hour earlier, according to Leyton.
Over the years, hundreds of people were interviewed.
There was even an arrest, but police determined that person was not the killer.
Retired Genesee County Sheriff Department Detective Gerald Parks worked the case with Genesee Township Police.
He is a reserve detective paid $1 a month and credited with cracking other cold cases.
"My daughter worked at that same gas station," Parks says. "This could have been my daughter. It could have been one of your family."
Musk's father had passed away five years before she was murdered.
At the time of her death, the teen lived with her aunt and uncle in Burton. They now live back in Twin Lake, near Muskegon.
They say they don't know Matthew Alder.
They don't think Musk did either.
"It was just a chance encounter," says Musk's uncle Ron Mast. "We just believe the opportunity was there. She was alone."
"We knew DNA would eventually come through," says Musk's aunt Carol Mast.
The Mast's credit the tireless efforts of Parks and other police.
Alder is expected to be formally charged, by video, next week.
He is in an Upper Peninsula prison.
Online court records indicate he faces one count of open murder and one count of felony murder in Musk's death.
Leyton says blunt force trauma is the cause of death.
Leyton says there is a possibility Alder could be tied to two additional murders - in North Carolina.
