A man has been found guilty in the murder of an elderly Queens man nearly 35 years after his death, prosecutors say.
Ernest Mattison, 52, was convicted of second-degree murder Thursday in the 1980 strangulation death of 73-year-old Cecil Schiff, according to the Queens district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors say Schiff’s wife found him dead in his Flushing home on Sept. 10 of that year after she returned from the store. The home had been ransacked and jewelry was missing.
Mattison was linked to the crime in 2008 when an automated fingerprint identification system matched his prints to those found on three jewelry boxes at the crime scene.
Mattison will be sentenced on April 23 and faces 25 years to life in prison.