Arrest Made in Decade-Old Irvine Killing : Crime: Michigan man will be returned to face charges in the 1983 slaying. Police used new fingerprint database.

IRVINE —  Nearly a decade after police discovered the body of an Irvine man in the trunk of his own car, police on Tuesday morning arrested a Michigan man in one of the longest murder investigations in the city’s history.

Irvine homicide investigators had run out of leads in the 1983 bludgeoning death of Boyd William Finkel, 39, a tire store owner who collected cars. Then last year, police tapped into a new, out-of-state computerized database, matching a set of fingerprints taken at the crime scene with those of a man who they say is their prime suspect.

Detectives on Tuesday culminated a nationwide search with the arrest of Scott Andrew Stockwell, 31, after questioning him a short distance from his home, a house trailer in Menominee County, Mich. Stockwell apparently had settled five years ago in the area, and lives there with his wife and 4-year-old boy, police said.

About two weeks ago, Irvine police obtained a murder arrest warrant naming Stockwell. Police suspect Stockwell argued with Finkel during a party, bludgeoned him to death and then hid the body in the trunk of the Cadillac, which was parked at Finkel’s home. Police said they do not know what the men were arguing about.

Stockwell waived his right to an extradition hearing Tuesday and detectives planned to fly back to Orange County with him today, said Irvine Lt. Sam Allevato.

Stockwell, who was being held without bail, will be arraigned Thursday in Harbor Municipal Court in Newport Beach.

Tony Settember, who worked with Finkel at an Irvine tire store and was one of two men whose missing person’s report began the case, said he was surprised police had made an arrest after so much time had passed.

“This is the last thing I would expect to hear. I hope they have the right person,” he said. “I thought that this one was under the rug and gone,” said Settember, 39, who owns his own tire shop in Upland. “That’s super. It’s been quiet. I’ve not heard anything or been contacted since the original case.”

Settember said Finkel was not married and had no relatives in California.

Finkel was seen alive the night of Oct. 15, 1983, dining with business associates at an Irvine restaurant, police said. They believe he was bludgeoned to death in the garage of his Irvine home shortly afterward, investigators said.

Officers went to Finkel’s home in the 4500 block of Lockhaven Circle about one week later, when Settember and another friend told police that they had not seen the man for a week and that it was unlike Finkel to drop out of sight.

Police discovered Finkel’s bludgeoned body, dressed only in black slacks, in the truck of his blue 1971 Cadillac convertible, parked in his garage.

Investigators at the time said Finkel’s new Honda Prelude, which he used regularly, was missing, possibly stolen by the suspect, Allevato said. By chance, a hunter in the wilderness near Dillon, Mont., discovered the vehicle in November, 1983, Allevato said.

Investigators matched fingerprints taken from the recovered car and those lifted from the crime scene and checked them with available records in Montana and California but were unable to identify whose they were, Allevato said.

The case remained largely dormant until last year when all Montana law enforcement agencies joined a statewide computerized database for fingerprints, Allevato said. An Irvine police sergeant, Scott Cade, remembering the Finkel case, checked the crime-scene prints with those in the Montana system and found a match, police said. Stockwell had been fingerprinted during a drunk driving arrest there, police said.

Police, contacting some of Stockwell’s relatives near Helena, Mont., found that he had moved to Michigan in 1988. Irvine police then issued a nationwide bulletin to law enforcement agencies, asking for help in finding him.

Stockwell’s name popped up in Marinette County, Wis., just across the Michigan state line. Authorities there had encountered him while investigating a crime in which Stockwell’s wife was the victim about two years ago, police said. Under the guise of follow-up investigation into that crime, Marinette police called Stockwell on Tuesday, telling him to come to the department. He was arrested without incident shortly afterward.

In addition to the fingerprints, police also recovered a murder weapon in Irvine, they said.

Police made an arrest in 1983 in connection with the slaying, shortly after Finkel was discovered, but the next day decided they would not pursue charges because the man passed a lie detector test that bolstered his claim that he was elsewhere during the slaying.