INDIANAPOLIS -- A man serving sentences for rapes in other states has been charged in the 1985 rape and slaying of a pregnant 19-year-old woman in Indianapolis, police said Saturday.

Indianapolis police said DNA evidence links Jimmy Atteberry, who has been on a work-release program in Missouri, to the death of Lisa Lightfoot.

Atteberry, 48, who police described as a transient from Indianapolis who also goes by the name of Jerry Darnell, was being held Saturday in St. Louis, Mo. He was awaiting extradition to Indiana, police said.

Lightfoot's body was found on Sept. 22, 1985, on an embankment near railroad tracks just east of a business at 927 Pennsylvania St., police said. She was reported missing a day earlier.

Police said evidence collected in the initial investigation was recently checked against a DNA database. The evidence matched Atteberry's DNA, which was in the database, police said.

Lightfoot's brother, Joel Lightfoot, told 6News' Cheryl Jackson that an investigation showed his sister was attacked by someone as she returned to her car from a convenience store.

She was raped, stabbed in the chest and stomach, and beaten, Joel Lightfoot said.

An autopsy showed that Lisa Lightfoot was pregnant when she was killed, according to police.

Police considered Atteberry a person of interest in the initial investigation of Lisa Lightfoot's death, Jackson reported. He had lived in the same apartment complex as Lightfoot, police said.

At the time that police learned that DNA evidence linked Atteberry to the 1985 slaying, he was on a work-release program in connection with rapes in Illinois and Missouri, police said.

Victim's Family Relieved By Arrest

Lisa Lightfoot's brother said he was pleased when police told him about Atteberry's arrest in the case.

"That's all I needed to hear," Joel Lightfoot said.

His father died a few years ago, but his mother is alive. He said that when he told her about Atteberry's arrest, she cried with relief.

Joel Lightfoot said he was the first to find his sister's body in September 1985. He and his parents were searching near a bridge after her driver's license was found underneath it.

He said he found a trail of papers that had come from her purse along some railroad tracks that went under the bridge.

"All the papers stopped, and then at that point I started looking around. I (saw) an automobile down the side of the railroad embankment, went down there, and there she lay," Joel Lightfoot said.