A young couple were found shot dead at a roadside in 1978. Nearly 50 years later a suspect, 71, has been charged

A tipster led police to Timothy Joley, whose fingerprints allegedly matched those found at the crime scene

Timothy Joley, 71, of Clearwater, Florida, was arrested and charged in the 1978 murders of 18-year-old Theresa Marcoux and 20-year-old Mark Harnish. (Pinellas County Jail)

Investigators believe they may have cracked the nearly 50-year-old double murder cold case of a young couple in Massachusetts.

Police arrested Timothy Joley, 71, on October 30 at his home in Clearwater, Florida for the 1978 double murder of 18-year-old Theresa Marcoux and 20-year-old Mark Harnish in Massachusetts, Fox 13 reports.

On November 19, 1978, a police officer in Springfield, Massachusetts was conducting a patrol when he saw a green Dodge pickup parked in a rest area near Route 5, according to the Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni.

The officer stopped to inspect the vehicle and saw that the driver’s side window had been damaged, and spotted blood around the vehicle.

He continued to search the area and eventually found the bodies of Marcoux and Harnish dumped over a nearby guardrail. Both had been shot, according to his report.

Police combed the crime scene but never found the murder weapon. Crime scene investigators collected biological and physical evidence from the scene at the time.

Theresa Marcoux, 18, was found dead by the side of a vehicle in Springfield, Massachusetts on November 19 1978 (Hampden District Attorney)

Investigators determined that the couple had been shot while they were in the passenger portion of the pickup’s cab, and that their bodies were later moved to the spot where the patrol officer found them.

A witness told police at the time that they had heard multiple gunshots around 4am on the morning that the couple were killed.

Gulluni said that bullet casings had been recovered from the scene, including from the passenger cab of the pickup truck. Following a ballistics analysis, investigators found that all of the bullets had been fired from the same gun.

They also located a latent fingerprint on the passenger window of the truck. The print did not belong to either of the victims.

Despite the evidence collected at the time, police were never able to link the crime to anyone. No fingerprint matches were ever found, according to Gulluni.

Mark Harnish was 20 when he was murdered (Hampden District Attorney)

A potential break in the case came last month when a tipster advised investigators to look into Timothy Scott Joley. The tipster reportedly gave the police information about Joley’s involvement in the deaths of the young couple.

Investigators followed the lead and found that Joley had been living in the Springfield area at the time of the murders. They recovered a fingerprint ID card for Joley from the Springfield Police Department dating back to 2000 when he applied for a taxi license.

Officers with backgrounds in fingerprint analysis compared Joley’s prints to those found at the crime scene and determined they matched.

They also determined that Joley had bought and registered a handgun about a month before the double murder.

Police arrested Joley on October 30 in Clearwater. He is currently being held without bond in the Pinellas County Jail. His first court appearance was on November 5, where it was determined he will be returned to Massachusetts to face charges.

Gulluni said police do not currently know why Joley allegedly killed the couple.