A man committed suicide after police questioned him about the murder in 1994. He has just been identified as the alleged killer.

A New York City school bus driver who killed himself in 2019 after authorities questioned him about the 1994 murder of an 81-year-old woman was identified Thursday as her alleged killer.

A fingerprint match and a recent tip have identified Jeremiah Guyett as a suspect in the death of Violet Filkins, police said in East Greenbush, south of Albany.

She was found bludgeoned to death in the living room of her apartment on August 19, 1994, Albany-based NBC affiliate WNYT reported.

Guyett, who served in the Air Force in Florida and also drove a bus for the elderly, was questioned after the murder but was never considered a person of interest, East Greenbush Police Sgt. This was stated to journalists by Michael Guadagnino.

According to Guadagnino, the ex-girlfriend later told authorities about Guyette that he started crying when he told her that he had robbed the woman and hit her.

“It can’t be true,” his ex-girlfriend recalled, according to Guadagnino. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

According to Guadagnino, on October 1, 2019, when Guadagnino and a New York State Police investigator tried to talk to Guyett about the murder, he became defensive and visibly upset.

Guyett refused to speak to authorities without a lawyer, Guadagnino said.

Authorities found him dead the next morning in the garage of his home in Rosendale, nearly 70 miles south of East Greenbush, Guadagnino said. According to him, the autopsy showed that Guyett committed suicide.

Investigators then resubmitted all of the physical evidence from the original case, including a wooden coffee table with an unknown fingerprint, not knowing if anything matched Guyette, Guadagnino said.

Three years later, after Covid overwhelmed the state crime lab and delayed the results of a forensic examination, the fingerprint was found to match Guyette’s left thumb, Guadagnino said.

A tip from a family member last year confirmed Guyette’s involvement, Guadagnino said: On October 1, 2019, the same day authorities approached Guyette, he called her in a panic and said he didn’t want to go to jail.

The story goes on

Guyett told a relative that when he was younger, he planned to rob a bank and steal a car to get college money, a family member told authorities, Guadagnino said.

“Someone died, but he no longer wanted to talk on the phone,” Guadagnino said.

According to Guadagnino, a relative arranged for Guyette to meet with a lawyer, which authorities confirmed with the lawyer.

During the press conference, Filkins’ niece, Carol Filkins, thanked the authorities and remembered her aunt as a simple woman who lived quietly and “never imagined something like this would happen.”

“We are all very grateful that the issue has been resolved,” she said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com.

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