Confronted with DNA evidence, a black rapist confesses to 1981 murder

Prosecutors have solved a more than three-decade-old homicide thanks to a DNA hit on an already imprisoned black rapist. Confronted with the fact that his DNA matched evidence found on the scene of the 1981 murder of Carol Novak, Eugene Booker confessed. Police found 35-year-old Novak dead and partially clothed in her living room at about 6:15 a.m. on October 2, 1981. Novak had been stabbed 50 times in her eye, back, abdomen and neck. There were trails of blood throughout the home, prosecutors said, and Novak's dog had been fatally stabbed in the head. Though police recovered a man's blood and semen on the scene, no one was ever charged and the case went cold. In 2013, detectives reopened the case by sending away evidence for DNA analysis. The evidence ended up being a positive match to now-59-year-old Booker, who's currently serving 80 years in prison for multiple sexual assaults and battery. When police interviewed Booker, he denied knowing the victim. Booker claimed that he wasn't familiar with the area where the victim lived and had never been inside the woman's home. But Booker quickly changed his story when police presented the DNA evidence. Booker has been charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bail.