STARKE, Fla. -- A man was indicted on a charge of murdering a 12-year-old north Florida girl after investigators used new technology to re-examine DNA evidence and ballistics results collected 15 years ago.

Michael C. Knickerbocker, 39, was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the 1989 murder of Meghan Renee Renaud of Bradford County, prosecutors and investigators said.

Knickerbocker was a suspect in her death within a year after her body was found. He was already sentenced to life for a series of five rapes in the Gainesville area that began in May 1989, two months after Renaud's murder.

State Attorney Bill Cervone said he intends to seek the death penalty against Knickerbocker, who is now being held at Union Correctional Institution near Raiford.

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Bradford Sergeant Recalls Finding Meghan's Body 15 Years Ago

The girl disappeared from her home near Starke on March 19, 1989. Four days later, her body was found in the nearby woods. She had been shot in the head and a bullet was in her body.

Knickerbocker had been released from prison several months before Meghan was murdered and was living in the same subdivision as the sixth-grader. In a letter sent to The Gainesville Sun in 1990, Knickerbocker denied any involvement with the murder.

Investigators never had enough evidence against Knickerbocker to charge him. Then, this summer, Cervone said his staff asked to submit evidence already gathered and have it re-examined using new technology.

The results, returned two weeks ago, prompted the grand jury hearing on the case, Cervone said. Cervone did not elaborate on the testing done or the DNA evidence. He also said a .22-caliber Derringer was in evidence.

Knickerbocker is not charged with sexual battery in Renaud's case. Investigators could not say if she had been molested due to the body's decomposition when officers discovered the girl.