Sixteen years after the brutal killing of 19 year old Aaron Glen Easton, Police have made an arrest that may finally bring closure to the investigation.

A 37-year-old suspect was arrested Saturday, days after he entered the Island by air.

Police are not revealing his identity or other details concerning the development.

The Royal Gazette understands, however, that DNA technology which was unavailable at the time of the murder may now be playing a key role in the ongoing investigation.

In 1985 Mr. Easton, a former footballer, was stabbed repeatedly and left to die in a pool of blood on Laffan Street.

Police said at the time the killing was drug related. But the murder remained unsolved.

Hours after the killing on May 4, 1985, more than a dozen officers rushed to Spanish Point where a crowd of about 20 youths were preparing to hang a man they suspected of committing the murder. The 30 year old man was taken into custody and later released. Another man, a 29 year old Pembroke resident, was also arrested and later released.

The investigation was kept open but with no success. And it was dogged by controversy as Mr. Easton's family continued to demand why no Coroner's Inquest was opened as was legally mandated at the time. Until the law was changed in 1998 inquests could name prime suspects in murder cases. Under the new law inquests into suspicious deaths only declare the cause of death.

Government backbencher and former police officer Wayne Perinchief, who at one time headed up the Easton murder investigation, said that the news of an arrest did not surprise him.

"I was aware we had sufficient elements of evidence to charge someone in the future," he said.

He said the investigation had been among his most challenging because so many of the witnesses were young people involved in criminality and of no fixed abode.

"It was like pulling teeth trying to get people to tell you where they were," Mr. Perinchief said. "You had to track the movements of dozens of young people."

Mr. Perinchief was hesitant to make any further comments, saying he did not want to compromise the investigation and he may be called as a witness. But he did say that he believed that if there has been a major breakthrough in the case it would be as a result of DNA evidence.

"It would be interesting to see how the Police can resurrect some of the witnesses and the evidence and it would be gratifying too," said Mr. Perinchief.

He added that the investigation had been a "pretty heavy load to bear for the family and a frustrating load to bear for the investigators".

Mr. Easton's family members could not be contacted for comment by presstime last night.

"What I can confirm is that an arrest has been made in the murder of Aaron Easton which actually took place in 1985," said a Police spokesman.

"We're in consultation with the office of the Department of Public Prosecutions and are expecting a court appearance. We did have information that he (the suspect) had been abroad for some years."