ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Thirty-six years after a young law student was shot in the head at point-blank range and dumped in a cemetery, a circuit court jury convicted a retired nurse of her murder.

The panel found Gary Leiterman, 62, guilty of the first-degree murder of Jane Mixer Friday afternoon following five hours of deliberations.

Leiterman showed no reaction to the verdict.

Mixer disappeared on March 20, 1969, after telling her family she was accepting a ride home for spring break with a stranger. For years, her death was grouped with a half-dozen murders of young women that were believed to be the works of a serial killer operating in this college area.

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The jury verdict appears to be an endorsement of DNA evidence hotly disputed during the two-week trial.

Leiterman, who was a 25-year-old drug salesman at the time of the crime and has no known connection to the victim, was arrested last year after a reinvestigation of the long-unsolved murder turned up stains on Mixer's pantyhose that matched his DNA.

The same lab, however, also found the DNA of another man, a convicted killer who was only 4 years old when the murder occurred.

"The system works and justice has been served," the victim's brother, Dan Mixer Jr., said after the verdict.

His 90-year-old father, Dan Sr., sobbed in the first row of the courtroom as the jury foreman read the verdict. Later, he called the trial "an ordeal for the family."

"We appreciate the police officers that have done everything to make justice prevail," he said.

After the verdict was announced, the defendant's wife, Solly, and the couple's two children looked stunned and began sobbing.

Prosecutor Steven Hiller said he was pleased with the verdict.

"Gary Leiterman deserved to pay the price for what he's done, and he'll do that," Hiller said.

Leiterman, a grandfather and one-time school board member, will receive a mandatory life term when Judge Donald Fhelton imposes his sentence on Aug. 30.

Leiterman's defense argued that an alleged serial killer, Don Norman Collins, was actually responsible for the murder. They also claimed that the presence of the second man's DNA in the form of a blood drop on the victims hand proved there was a lab contamination.

Hiller acknowledged the prosecution is still unable to explain how the presence of convicted killer Don Ruelas at the crime scene.

"Its something we knew we had to deal with but it doesn't change and it never did change the nature of the evidence against Gary Leiterman," Hiller said.