MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A man whose conviction for the 1983 rape and killing of a Minneapolis teenager was made possible by DNA evidence is being sentenced.

A Hennepin County judge last month found 64-year-old Darrell Rea guilty of the death of 17-year-old Laurie Mesedahl, whose body was found bludgeoned along railroad tracks in North Minneapolis.

Rea is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday. He has denied the accusations.

Prosecutors say detectives were able to solve Mesedahl's case because one of Rea's victims escaped after he stabbed her with an ice pick in the back of the neck in 1988. The woman managed to escape the stranger's car and ran for help covered in blood.

Years passed before investigators were able to match the Rea's DNA to Mesedahl's.

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