Almost 40 years after Salem State student Claire Gravel was murdered, the person responsible for her brutal killing has finally been brought to justice.

A jury found John Carey, 66, guilty of first-degree murder at Essex County Superior Court in Lawrence Tuesday, District Attorney Paul Tucker announced.

Carey is already imprisoned on a 2008 attempted murder conviction and will be sentenced for Gravel’s death on March 26. He faces a mandatory penalty of life without the possibility of parole.

It was DNA found on a black tank top used to strangle Gravel back in June of 1986 that cracked the case open decades later in 2022, according to Tucker.

Gravel was just 20 years old when she was killed, a college student from North Andover who worked at the National Braille Press. Her body had been found in the woods off a dirt path by a public works crew.

The Herald reported at the time that she’d been seen at a local restaurant two days earlier after a rec softball game. A friend dropped her home around 1:30 a.m. the next day, and she was never seen alive again.

The victim’s family, including her father and brothers, attended the trial. Tucker noted that James Gravel took the witness stand to describe his sister as a fun, feisty, and friendly young woman before her death.

“The family of Claire Gravel has waited 40 long years for justice,” Tucker said in a statement. “The prosecutors here today, together with our partners in law enforcement, never gave up on Claire’s case and today we are pleased that at least the family has some answers – some closure.”