LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — A DNA match led to the arrest of a 56-year-old Lewiston man in the 1982 strangulation death of his girlfriend in Kennewick, Wash.
Jack L. Welch has been confined to a wheelchair and unable to eat or speak since suffering a traumatic brain injury in a fall in 2001. Kennewick police reports say he has long been a suspect in the March 1982 death of 25-year-old Rose Baugh.
Welch was briefly booked into the Nez Perce County jail on a first-degree murder warrant Tuesday and then released on his own recognizance.
Kennewick Police Sgt. Ken Lattin says prosecutors will have to determine if Welch is competent to stand trial.
