An 80-year-old man accused of the brutal 1973 murders of two women has been extradited back to Virginia to face trial.

Ernest Broadmax, an ex-convict with a lengthy criminal record, was taken into custody last week in Queens by the NYPD's Cold Case Apprehension Squad.

Broadmax is facing murder and rape charges in Virginia over the deaths of Lynn Seethaler and Janice Pietropaola, who were both 19 and from Pittsburgh.

Ernest Broadmax, an ex-convict with a lengthy criminal record, is accused of the brutal 1973 murders of two women. He is pictured at Queens Criminal Court where he will be extradited back to Virginia to face charges

Mystery solved: The NYPD on Monday arrested 80-year-old Ernset Broadnax for the 1973 murders of Lynn Seethaler (left) and Janice Pietropaola (right), both 19, in Virginia

Broadmax clutched a cane with both hands as he was escorted into Queens Criminal Court, where a judge officially handed him off to a pair of Virginia Beach police for extradition.

Asked if he had anything to say to the families of his alleged victims as he was led away, Broadmax said: 'No, no, no, tell them to talk to my lawyer.'

The girls had been vacationing at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront in June 1973 when they were found dead in a motel cottage. Broadmax was 33-years-old at the time.

Pietropaola was raped, strangled and shot three times. Seethaler was strangled, shot twice in the head and had her throat cut with a broken wine bottle.

A worker at Farrar's Tourist Village found the women's bodies after they missed their checkout time at the end of a five-day stay, reported The Virginian Pilot.

Pietropaola and Seethaler's bodies were described by local police as 'partially clad' and one of them was naked from the waist down.

The attacker was believed to have entered the cottage by removing a window screen and climbing inside.

The cottage where the double homicide occurred has since been destroyed and replaced with new motels and shops.

In 2011, Virginia Beach detectives told the station WTRK they suspected the person who murdered Pietropaola and Seethaler had slain as many as 10 women, all of them between the ages of 18 and 25, in the area in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Broadmax, resident of Hollis, Queens, has not been linked to the other cold-case killings and disappearances of young women in Virginia Beach

Records indicate that Broadmax has been in and out of jail in New York City since 1990, when he moved to the city. His past criminal history includes 10 arrests on charges of assault, burglary and trespassing

Broadmax is due to be charged with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of rape.

So far, the 80-year-old resident of Hollis, Queens, has not been linked to the other cold-case killings and disappearances of young women in Virginia Beach.

DNA evidence found at the crime scene matched Broadnax's profile in a national database as he is a repeat offender and had been formally incarcerated.

Police have not said exactly how they managed to track the suspect down after 45 years or where the DNA was found. An NYPD spokesperson attributed Broadnax's arrest to 'good police work.'

Broadmax clutched a cane with both hands as he was escorted out of the courtroom

Virginia Beach police spokesperson Linda Kuehn said in a statement that in the fall of 2018, the agency's cold-case investigators 'began aggressively researching a strong lead they had received in the case,' which ultimately led to Broadnax's arrest this week.

Records indicate that Broadmax has been in and out of jail in New York City since 1990, when he moved to the city. His past criminal history includes 10 arrests on charges of assault, burglary and trespassing.

He was most recently released from prison in 2013 after serving eight years on an assault conviction where he beat a customer who was buying metal scraps from him in Manhattan.

The Pittsburgh women were found strangled and shot inside a motel cottage at Farrar's Tourist Village in Virginia Beach (pictured) in June 2013

Pietropaola (right) was raped, strangled and shot three times. Seethaler (left) was strangled, shot twice in the head and had her throat cut with a broken wine bottle

Until his arrest on Monday, Broadnax had been living in an affordable housing facility for military veterans.

His neighbor Kevin Wallace told the New York Daily News that arresting officers offered Broadnax a bottle of water, helped him put on some clothes and led him away without restraining his hands.

'He went very quietly,' Wallace said. 'He knew he did it. They couldn't find him, and all the sudden they found him.'

Wallace, 60, described the suspected murderer as a very quiet man who kept to himself.

Adedayo Peterson, whose mother was briefly married to Broadnax in the 1970s, claims that the man grew violent while he was with her mom.

She said that the man - who served in the Army and was incarcerated in Virginia before meeting Peterson's mother - once beat her mom with a belt and pulled a gun out on her brother.

'I didn't expect nothing like that,' Peterson said to the New York Times. 'But I wouldn't put it past him.'