For 37 years, the murder of 18-year-old Laurie Ann Powell haunted Virginia’s Gloucester County and the investigators who refused to let her name fade into another cold case file.

Thursday, Virginia State Police delivered the answer Powell’s family has spent nearly four decades waiting for: advanced DNA testing identified Alan Wade Wilmer Sr. as the man responsible for her 1988 killing.

“We express our sincere condolences for your loss and the pain you had experienced these past 37 years. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding as our agencies worked toward solving this case,” Robin Lawson, the public relations director for Virginia State Police, said during a Friday news conference.

Wilmer, a commercial waterman who drifted between marinas in Gloucester, Middlesex, the Northern

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