Investigators say improvements in the crime lab helped lead to the arrest of an Alabama man in connection with a 24-year-old murder in Georgia

LAFAYETTE, Ga. (AP) — A 63-year-old man has been arrested in Alabama for the 2000 murder of a woman in northwest Georgia.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Walker County Sheriff's Office announced Friday that they have charged Clerance D. George with murder and aggravated assault in connection with the June 2000 death of Julie Ann McDonald.

McDonald, a pharmacist, was found stabbed to death in her home in LaFayette, Georgia, about 25 miles south of Chattanooga.

In a news conference Friday, officials said a combination of better crime lab technology and traditional police work allowed them to conclude that George killed McDonald.

Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said George was arrested in Birmingham on Aug. 22 and is awaiting extradition to Georgia. George was not listed in Jefferson County jail records Monday and it is unclear if he has an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

George was initially identified as one of four or five suspects in the case, said GBI Special Agent in Charge Joe Montgomery, in part because George was found with a McDonald's checkbook in neighboring Catoosa County.

“It wasn't a xenophobia,” Wilson said. “They knew each other.”

Montgomery declined to discuss what motive George might have had for killing McDonald.

Authorities said the case was reinvestigated in 2015-2016, but evidence tests at the time failed to identify a suspect. The case was reexamined in the last two years, and Montgomery said lab tests linked evidence to George.

“It's getting better every day,” Montgomery said of the technology. “It gives us hope for some of the other cases that we couldn't solve 20 or 30 years ago. Today we can.”

Wilson said McDonald's closest living relatives are a niece and nephew who have been notified of the arrest.

“We have been working on this case for 24 years and we never give up on these unsolved cases,” he said.