BOSTON (WHDH) - An Oregon man was arraigned in Boston on Monday after authorities say he confessed to his role in the death of a 24-year-old woman in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, as well as another murder.
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden announced that John Michael Irmer, 68, was transported from Portland, Oregon, to Massachusetts to face charges for the rape and murder of Susan Marcia Rose, who was killed on Oct. 30, 1979, in a Back Bay apartment building.
According to the DA’s office, it was last month when Irmer walked into the Portland FBI field office and volunteered to agents that he met a woman with red hair at a skating rink around Halloween in Boston in 1979.
Irmer said they later walked into 285 Beacon St., which was under renovation at the time, where he claimed that shortly after the two entered the building, he grabbed a nearby hammer and struck the woman on the head, killing her. He said he fled to New York the next day.
Investigators retrieved a DNA sample from Irmer, which proved to be a match with DNA samples preserved from the murder scene.
“Nearly 44 years after losing her at such a young age, the family and friends of Susan Marcia Rose will finally have some answers. This was a brutal, ice-blooded murder made worse by the fact that a person was charged and tried—and fortunately, found not guilty—while the real murderer remained silent until now. No matter how cold cases get resolved, it’s always the answers that are important for those who have lived with grief and loss and so many agonizing questions,” Hayden said in a statement.
In court on Monday morning, prosecutors said Irmer also confessed to another murder involving a woman in the southern U.S. years ago, though officials had not yet finished investigating the claim by the time of his arraignment.
Authorities also noted that Irmer spent 30 years behind bars in California for another murder case, and that he had been out of prison for the past decade.
A judge ordered the 68-year-old murder suspect be held without bail, with a pre-trial hearing scheduled for Oct. 17.
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