A new lead has emerged in a decades-old missing person case,thanks to a veteran homicide detective who credits the Globe’s Cold Case Files for helping him identify a possible suspect.

When Rick Nagle, a retired State Police detective lieutenant, read the Globe’s most recent story about Simone Ridinger’s disappearance in 1977 , he immediately thought of Eric H. Anderson Jr., a convicted killer from southeastern Massachusetts with a history of violent assaults on women.

“Thank God you did that article,” Nagle said in a recent phone interview. “That’s what got me interested in Simone.”

Nagle, who played a pivotal role in linking Anderson to another 1977 murder, has brought his theory to police in Sherborn, where Ridinger and her family once lived and where she was reported missing 4

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