A man who cut his neighbor’s lawn as a teenager in Annapolis was arrested this week in her killing, decades after she was found sexually assaulted and fatally shot.

William Eugene Cook Jr., now 52, faces murder, rape and assault charges in the Jan. 11, 1989, killing of 47-year-old Garnet Elizabeth Griffith.

An Anne Arundel County District judge ordered Cook, of West Washington Street, held without bond Friday. He does not have an attorney listed in court records.

After eliminating Griffith’s boyfriend as a suspect, the case stumped detectives with the Annapolis Police Department for decades.

Their break came in 2008 when a law enforcement database suggested there was a match between DNA recovered from Griffith’s body and that of a Cook, who had been arrested for a recent burglary, according to charging documents.

Detectives wrote that they confronted Cook in the hallway after a court hearing two years later, but he denied having sexual relations with Griffith at any time. He allegedly agreed to an interview at the Police Department but didn’t show up and fell off detectives’ radar.

In 2021, shortly after Annapolis Police Chief Ed Jackson launched a cold case unit, the case got a fresh look, charging documents show. Detectives then ordered a comparison of Cook’s DNA sample from the burglary and the genetic matter recovered from Griffith decades earlier. The analysis confirmed what the law enforcement database suggested: It was a match.

According to charging documents, cold case detectives also realized that Griffith’s fingernail clippings were never analyzed for DNA, so they had them tested. The analysis revealed the sample came from a single male individual and was “eight (8) times more likely to be observed if it came from COOK than from an unknown, unrelated individual.”

That finding was significant, detectives wrote, because other evidence suggested signs of a violent struggle: Griffith had defensive wounds on her wrists, in addition to 17 distinct injuries. She was also shot in the left side of her cheek and the back of her head.

Responding to a 911 call in the morning of Jan. 12, 1989, Annapolis Police officers found Griffith dead at a residence on Kensington Way. Investigators recovered two .22 caliber bullet fragments, according to charging documents. Griffith had purchased a handgun of the same caliber after another was stolen in a burglary before her killing.

“COOK has admitted knowing the victim but specifically denied any sexual contact with the victim which has been proven to be false through forensic evidence,” detectives wrote. “COOK left his DNA behind in a murdered victim’s body and shrugged it off when confronted with that fact, stating it wasn’t him.”

They said they confronted him twice, around the time of the homicide, when he was 17, and in 2010.

Cook, detectives wrote, “has the motive to mislead investigators.”

After conferring with the office of Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess, detectives secured charges and a warrant for his arrest. Police took him into custody at his apartment Thursday.

Leitess declined to comment.

In a statement, Chief Jackson lauded the arrest, giving special kudos to the cold case squad he created.

Jackson added that the case should offer hope to those with unsolved cases in Annapolis.

“This arrest brings some measure of closure to the victim’s family, and it shows our community that we will never stop fighting for justice,” Jackson said. “To all of the families still grieving from any open cold case, we will continue to investigate those and do everything in our power to bring those persons responsible for their murders to justice!”