DNA from saliva collected on a sidewalk led to the arrest of a Massachusetts man in connection with the 1988 murder of Karen Taylor, officers said.

A former police chief recalls how, nearly 10 years after a pair of gruesome murders amid an oil boom, investigators solved the case with a confession a decade in the making.

A 65-year-old man was arrested after his DNA was linked to the 1988 murder of a 25-year-old mother who was found stabbed at her Boston home, police said.

James Holloman was arrested on Thursday afternoon in 25-year-old Karen Taylor’s death after police saw him spit on the sidewalk outside his home in Dorchester and matched his saliva to forensic evidence taken in 1988,