-- From Times staff reporter Jennifer Sullivan:

Daryl Hart, the 50-year-old man arrested Friday in connection with the August 1984 slaying of a former neighbor, was charged today with first-degree murder. Hart is being held in the King County Jail on $1 million bail.

Nora Gracey, 70, a widow and retired seamstress, was found slain on Aug. 12, 1984, in her Rainier Valley home. The case went cold in the mid-1980s, but technological advances in comparing DNA samples enabled police to tie the 50-year-old suspect to the crime, said Seattle police Detective Mike Ciesynski.

Hart was identified as the suspect because of sperm found on Gracey's thigh, court charging papers said.

Hart was arrested Friday after he showed up at police headquarters for a meeting with detectives to discuss the case. Until Friday, when police notified Hart of the DNA match, he denied any role in the slaying. He had said that Gracey seemed "like a mother to him," charging papers said.

After the slaying, Hart returned to Gracey's home only this time with his mother. The man's mother, Queen Hart, was worried about her neighbor of 14 years because she hadn't seen her for a few days, according to charging papers.

When Queen Hart saw that the house appeared to have been ransacked she asked another neighbor to help them look for Gracey. The three returned to the home and found the slain woman in her bed, charging documents said.

Seattle police were called and found drawers were open inside Gracey's room, jewelry boxes on the bed and sperm was found on the woman's inner thigh, charging papers said.

Daryl Hart told police in 1984 that he had last seen Gracey alive on Aug. 9 when she was driving to the store with her son. Gracey's son, Terry Stewart, told police in 1984 that his mother had returned home from a trip to Portland on Aug. 11, charging documents said.

About two weeks after Gracey's death, Seattle police received a phone call from a state Department of Corrections probation officer who was supervising Hart. The probation officer said that Hart was upset about the woman's death and was worried that he might be blamed for it, charging papers said.