A North Carolina man suspected of killing a Massachusetts teenager in 1986 reportedly waived rendition during a court hearing Monday.
Michael Hand, 61, of Troutman, was taken into custody on Friday and charged with murder in connection with the death of 15-year-old Kingston high school freshman Tracy Gilpin.
Hand was formally charged in North Carolina on Monday and will now be brought back to Massachusetts to be prosecuted for Gilpin's killing.
A court official told the Boston Globe that Hand represented himself during Monday's hearing. Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said his office is in the process of returning Hand to Massachusetts, where he will be arraigned in Plymouth District Court and charged with murder.
According to state police detectives, as well as Plymouth and Kingston police, information led them to travel to North Carolina recently in the investigation of Gilpin's murder. Over the past week, state police investigators, with assistance from the Troutman and Mooresville police departments in North Carolina, extensively interviewed Hand.
Statements made by Hand during the interviews led authorities to arrest him at his home on Friday. He was charged as a fugitive from justice based on an arrest warrant issued for the murder of Gilpin.
Hand was then transported to the Iredell County Detention Center where he was brought before a magistrate. Based on the charges against him and his potential to be a flight risk, he was given no bond.
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Gilpin, the sister of current state police Col. Kerry Gilpin, disappeared on Oct. 1, 1986. Her body was found in Myles Standish State Forest in Plymouth three weeks later.
Col. Kerry Gilpin issued a statement on behalf of her family:
"My family and I would like to thank Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz, the Plymouth County State Police Detective Unit, the Massachusetts State Police Crime Lab, the Kingston and Plymouth Police Departments, police in North Carolina, and all of the investigators who have worked diligently over the last 31 years to solve Tracy’s murder," read Col. Gilpin's statement.
