Police have finally identified the remains of a mid-Michigan couple nearly 40 years after they were found dead near the Missouri-Arkansas border.

The remains of James Hendricks, of Flint, were found in Missouri while the body of Kimberlin Mills, of Millington, was discovered 12 miles away in Arkansas on June 17, 1978.

However, police believe they were both killed by the same suspect.

Neither Mills or Hendricks were reported missing from Michigan at the time, according to Michigan State Police. Hendricks, a parole absconder, was thought to have fled the Midwest with Mills, his girlfriend at the time of their deaths.

A break in the case came in May 2017 when Missouri State Highway Patrol investigators re-ran samples using new fingerprint matching technology that connected Hendricks's fingerprints on file with the Michigan Department of Corrections.

Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Sarah Krebs said no arrests have been made in the case because until now "they were Jane and John Does for 40 years."

"There was never anything to go on," she commented, noting the Federal Bureau of Investigations began using a different algorithm for the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or AFIS, that allows for low quality samples to be checked.

The previous identification system required higher quality prints from both hands that were not available in this case. Fingerprints of Hendricks were already on file in Michigan because he was a parolee, but there were none for Mills.

The Wexford County Sheriff's Department notified Hendricks' family living in the Cadillac area and learned of Mills. DNA was collected from a brother of Mills and sent to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System lab at the University of North Texas.

The information was then uploaded into the Combined DNA Index System and compared to Mills' remains. The Arkansas State Crime Lab, State Medical Examiner confirmed Mills' identification in December 2017.

Krebs stressed the importance of DNA in being able to connect the pieces that led to the identifications.

An ID the Missing event is scheduled for Feb. 15 at Berston Field House in Flint to try and help find the families connected to unidentified remains from medical examiner's offices throughout the state.

"All we need is their DNA and we might be able to solve (their case)," said Krebs.