A US army veteran previously convicted of murder of his commanding officer has been arrested and charged with killing two teenagers almost 50 years ago when he was 17-years-old.

Steven Paul Criss, 65, is accused of murdering Donny Barton, who was 16 at the time, and Pete Zito, 18, when he shot them dead in a parking lot of a recreational center in October, 1974.

After decades and several mistakes by the police, authorities announced that they had finally arrested Criss.

A newspaper delivery driver found the lifeless bodies of the two teenage boys the morning after the murder. Barton was found slumped over the hood of his 1956 Oldsmobile, indicating that he had been working on it when he was shot. Zito was found near Barton, next to the driver’s door.

The Washington County Sheriff’s office said that the shooter had used a .22 caliber handgun to shoot both boys multiple times.

The Sheriff’s office gave a press release on Friday saying that Criss was one of the first suspects in the case when he got arrested for stealing about two months after the double murders. He became a suspect after a police officer found a .22 caliber handgun while searching his car.

They took the gun for testing, but the bullets used to kill the boys did not match Criss’s gun, so they took him off the list of suspects in the case.

A delivery driver for the Oregonian newspaper was the first to discover the teens’ bodies and immediately called 911. Jim Spinden, who at the time was a deputy and later became elected as the Washington County Sheriff, was the first officer to arrive at the Oak Hills Recreational Center. He found Zito on the ground, and Barton slumped over his car’s open hood.

Barton and Criss worked together at a restaurant in Hillsboro, but they did not get along. Although the police knew that Criss was upset with Barton, they pursued other leads and arrested another suspect.

The police arrested Joseph Amir Wilson and charged him with double homicide even though he continuously said he was innocent. Wilson had been seen allegedly assaulting another man the previous night at the recreational center, which led some police officers to believe he had shot the two boys in an unfortunate case of mistaken identity.

In 1975, the police dropped the case against Wilson.

After the ballistics failed to match Criss’s gun to the murders, police returned his gun to him and released him. 

Two years later, Criss went to the Fort Lewis US Army base in Washington and shot his commanding officer in the head with the same gun.

Criss shot Sgt. Jacob Kim Brown five times in the head, killing him, after Criss damaged Brown’s car, and he did not want to pay for repairs. Criss was sentenced to 35 years for the murder but only served 12 years.

After reopening the case nearly five decades later, detectives decided to run ballistics again on Criss’ gun, and this time, it came back positive.

He was charged with two counts of second-degree murder.