GREELEY, Colo. -- An ex-convict living in Florida has been arrested in the 1977 rape and slaying of a Greeley 7-Eleven clerk.

The cold case remained unsolved for 32 years.

Marcello Maldonado-Perez was arrested Tuesday morning in Port Charlotte, Fla., on a warrant issued in Weld County, Colo.

Investigators with the Weld County Sheriff's Office said DNA collected from the body of 22-year-old Mary Pierce matched DNA from Maldonado-Perez. Pierce's body was found in a cornfield two days after she was kidnapped from a 7-Eleven that was in the 1100 block of 9th Street on Aug. 25, 1977.

An autopsy revealed she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times.

The 7-Eleven is no longer there and the cornfield is now the 8300 block of 10th Street in Greeley.

DNA evidence from the crime scene was submitted to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in 2003 and 2006 and the results were placed into a nationwide database.

Investigators were informed earlier this year of a match to samples taken just before Maldonado-Perez was released from a Texas prison in 2008. Following his release, he was eventually traced to Florida and an arrest warrant on charges of first-degree murder was issued on Nov. 30.

Weld County deputies joined officers from the Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force, comprised of U.S. Marshals, and Charlotte County (Fla.) Sheriff's Office arrested Maldonado-Perez at his home.

He was being held without bond in the Charlotte County Jail pending extradition proceedings.

Pierce's sister, Theresa Pierce of Santa Fe, N.M., told the Greeley Tribune Tuesday that she is pleased with the arrest

"I know it's an overused phrase, but this does give us some closure," Pierce told the newspaper. "I hope they've got the right guy and they can put him away forever."