CROWN POINT, Ind. -- A man from Maine pleaded guilty yesterday to a brutal torture-slaying case in Indiana from almost 30 years ago.

David Bowen, 44, of Portland recently told an Indiana court he was the person who the murdered 8-year-old Kenneth "Butch" Conrick.

The boy was reported missing in October 1979. His nude body was found later in a wooded area near his family's Gary, Ind., home. He was bound to a tree and a cord had been tied around his neck. Authorities said his body showed signs of brutal, prolonged torture.

In this file photo, David Bowen
leaves Farmington District Court after
his December arrest for Conrick's murder.

Prosecutor Bernard Carter said Bowen had forced the boy to perform a sexual act on him and became enraged when he stopped. Bowen then stabbed the boy in the chest multiple times with a stick, then cut him with a piece of glass, Carter said.

Bowen, then 16, lived in the same neighborhood and emerged as a suspect. He had been accused of a violent sexual assault on a 9-year-old boy a year earlier, but police said that boy's mother agreed not to press charges because Bowen underwent psychiatric treatment.

Bowen became a suspect, but no physical evidence linked him to the slaying then. Investigators reopened the case three years ago, and a DNA sample from Bowen's sister showed genetic similarities. Sentencing for Bowen is set for Oct. 7. He was arrested in Maine in December and extradited to Lake County.

Bowen, who lived in Portland for more than two decades with his wife, is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 7. He could be sentenced to 50 years in prison.

In December, the Portland Press Herald published an in-depth report about how neighbors and people who knew him were shocked by his arrest. Click here to read it.