Detectives say they’ve made an arrest in a nearly three decade old Santa Barbara County murder case.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s investigators say DNA evidence linked Larry Lon Lee to the July, 1988 slaying of Vernon Hart Kendrick of Montecito.
He had been killed by blunt force trauma.
At the time, detectives developed a profile of a person of interest who was last seen with the 46 year old victim in downtown Santa Barbara.
However, they never were able to identify the man.
In 2010, investigators submitted DNA from the crime scene to the state crime lab, and it went into a national database.
It led to the identification last month of Lee, who was in a Sarasota, Florida jail on unrelated charges.
Once the 52 year old man’s charges in Florida are settled, extradition charges will be sought to bring Lee to Santa Barbara to face a murder charge.
