(If you’re having trouble viewing this video on a mobile device, click here.)

ANTIOCH — Police here made the shocking announcement Monday night that they have solved one of the city’s most notorious cold-case homicides, the kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Suzanne Bombardier, who disappeared while babysitting her nieces more than 37 years ago.

It was a case that shook the community and continues to haunt longtime Antioch residents. The former police officers who investigated it rallied time and time again to keep the investigation going, and to make sure no one forgot Suzanne, even more than three decades after the homicide investigation went cold.

Mitchell Lynn Bacom, 63, will be charged with murdering Suzanne, according to county prosecutors. He was arrested Monday at his Antioch home without incident, police said. Bacom, a native of Knightsen, was a longtime suspect in the case. He was being held on charges of murder, kidnapping, rape and oral copulation.

“Justice may not have come swiftly as we may have hoped or liked,” Contra Costa DA Diana Becton said. “But we will continue to work diligently on these cases and hopefully justice will come.”

Police say Bacom was known to Suzanne’s family but wouldn’t elaborate how. They said he was identified as the killer through DNA evidence acquired in the case that was run through a federal database.

The biological material linked to Bacom’s DNA had been in an evidence locker and was tested before, but Contra Costa DA inspector Paul Holes said that new medical research that came out within the past year has allowed police across the country to solve more cold cases.

“We literally saw within the past 12 months the technology improve to the point where we were able to get a match,” Holes said. “The crime labs are using new chemistry in the DNA process.”

In an interview with the Contra Costa Times in 1996, Suzanne’s father, Ted Bombardier, said that Suzanne must have known her killer.

“Obviously, there was no forced entry. She must have known who it was,” Ted Bombardier said.

Suzanne was abducted on the early morning of June 21, 1980. She was babysitting her two nieces alone in her sister’s Hudson Court apartment. Suzanne had just started the first day of summer vacation and had talked with a friend on the phone until 1:30 a.m.

When her sister Stephanie Mullen arrived home at 4 a.m., she couldn’t find Suzanne.

.

On June 27, Antioch police Detective Gregory Glod received the call that Suzanne’s body was pulled from the San Joaquin River by a fisherman. Suzanne had been sexually assaulted and died from a single stab wound to the heart.

Days later, a report card came to her family’s home saying she was making straight A’s.

“She was young and full of life, and she had her whole life ahead of her,” Glod said in an interview Monday, later adding, “It had a huge impact on the community. It has affected a lot of people’s lives; family, friends.”

Glod was assigned Suzanne’s case on the first day of her disappearance, and it has gnawed at him ever since. After learning of the murder charges Monday, he could hardly contain his joy, calling it “a dream come true” and commending Antioch police and the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Cold Case Unit for staying with the investigation. He said he became convinced of Bacom’s guilt at some point during his investigation but police couldn’t gather enough proof for prosecutors to file a case.

“My prayers have been answered. … Probably not too many days have gone by that I haven’t thought about this case,” Glod said. “This has made my life complete to be quite honest with you.”

Bacom is a registered sex offender whose last reported address was on West Madill Street in Antioch. In 1973, he was arrested in Mountain View and eventually was convicted of first and second-degree burglary, assault with intent to murder and sodomy. He was sentenced to five years to life.

In 1981, Bacom was arrested for sodomy by force or fear of a person under 14 years of age in Isleton and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. He was released from custody 12 years later.

In 2002, Bacom was convicted of failing to register as a sex offender and was sentenced to four years in prison.

Former Antioch police detective Ron Rackley — the officer who filed the missing person’s report — had been working on the case with Glod off and on since he retired in 2006; the two men would contact each other periodically to share notes and decades after the murder they reinterviewed Bombardier’s sister and niece.

Several years ago he and Glod also made a concerted effort to persuade Antioch Police Department to revive the investigation, Rackley said.

Over the years, Bombardier’s family has experienced some healing, he said, and although the arrest will reopen those wounds, Rackley thinks her relatives eventually — finally — will be able to accept the painful past and let it go.

“It’ll give me closure,” he added, “and I won’t have any more nightmares knowing that someone is in jail.”

Related Articles East Bay cold case suspect warned 20 years ago that he might ‘slip’ again

Former Antioch cops spotlight 35-year-old cold case After 37 years, many have Glod, Rackley, and author Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons to thank for the continued spotlight.

Gibbons was the author that brought Suzanne’s case back into the spotlight in 2014 after coming across her headstone in Lafayette’s Queen of Heaven Cemetery. She was visiting her grandparents’ graves in 2013 when she came across Suzanne’s gravesite and her curiosity brought her to write the Lost Girl blog that traced her discovery of Suzanne’s stories.

“I can name five to 10 children that were kidnapped in the early 80s,” Gibbons said. “I never talked to strangers, I tried to stay safe. I was one of the lucky ones and felt it was my duty to tell the story of a lost girl who slipped through the cracks.”

Her work brought her the attention of Glod and Rackley. Both detectives were trying to start up a cold case unit in Contra Costa County at the time.

Police say they are investigating Bacum in other homicides and encourage anyone with information about him to call Capt. Leonard Orman at 925-779-6918.