AUGUSTA (AP) — A former Maine man was arrested in Washington state for the 1976 stabbing death of a 70-year-old woman after DNA linked him to the crime, police said Tuesday.

Gary Raub, 63, was arrested Monday night in Seattle in the death of Blanche Kimball, whose body was found inside her Augusta home on June 12, 1976. It’s the oldest unsolved killing in Maine in which an arrest has been made.

Detectives with the Maine State Police and the Augusta Police Department flew to Seattle on Monday and arrested Raub, who was known as Gary Wilson in 1976, with help from Seattle police, state police spokesman Steve McCausland said.

Kimball was last seen painting her steps on Memorial Day in 1976, police said. Her body was found on June 12 after neighbors reported she hadn’t been seen for several days. She died of multiple stab wounds.

Raub at one time rented a room from Kimball and detectives interviewed him twice after her killing, police said.

Police early this year were able to develop a DNA profile from blood from Kimball’s kitchen. Detectives then got Raub’s DNA in July by asking him to participate in a chewing gum survey, according to an affidavit cited by the Kennebec Journal (http://bit.ly/R8mXMs).

Extradition hearings were expected to begin Tuesday or Wednesday in Seattle, McCausland said, after which Raub was expected to be returned to Maine.

The previous oldest cold case killing to be solved in Maine was the 1980 beating death of Rita St. Peter of Anson, whose body was found by the side of a rural road.

Jay Mercier, 57, of Industry, was convicted of murder last month. He faces 25 years to life in prison when he’s sentenced in November.