The Arlington Police Department and the University of Texas at Arlington announced an arrest Monday in a 34-year-old cold case murder. 

Sixty-three-year-old Janie Perkins has been arrested and charged in the 1991 murder of Cynthia Gonzalez.

Perkins was taken into custody November 8 and booked into the Tarrant County Jail on a charge of capital murder – terroristic threat. She was released after posting a $150,000 bond.

The new developments in the case came about from a new partnership between Arlington PD and UTA's Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

At the start of the fall semester, UTA's Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice launched a new course in partnership with the police department that allows students to review cold cases in an effort to develop new leads. The Gonzalez case was one of three the students were presented with, and it was assigned to a small group.

The students started asking detectives questions about Perkins, who appeared in the files. That prompted detectives to take a deeper look at her. 

Arlington PD said that during the initial investigation, Perkins did not provide an alibi for the night when Gonzalez went missing. She also failed two polygraph tests, and made statements indicating she was glad that Gonzalez was dead. 

Polygraph tests are not admissible in court and Perkins denied her involvement, and she was not charged, police said.

However, after detectives picked the case back up they learned that witnesses had come forward who claimed Perkins told them she was involved in the murder.

"Detectives compared those witness statements to the evidence in the case and found they aligned. They believe this demonstrated Ms. Perkins either participated in or facilitated Ms. Gonzalez's kidnapping and murder," the department said in a news release. That gave prosecutors enough probable cause to file charges.

"When we launched our cold case partnership with UTA, we always hoped we'd get an outcome like this one day," Arlington Police Chief Al Jones said. "I don't think any of us expected that lightning would strike the first time. I want to sincerely thank the students for their work and dedication to this case. I also want to thank UTA faculty for embracing this program. We hope this is just the first of more to come."  

Disappearance, murder of Cynthia Gonzalez

On September 17, 1991, Gonzalez was reported missing from Arlington. Her body was found five days later in a rural area of Johnson County, according to Arlington PD. She had been shot multiple times and was decomposing.

Police said Gonzalez and Perkins had been friends who frequently spent time together, but both became romantically involved with the same man. Several weeks before Gonzalez's murder, police said the man told Perkins that he was breaking things off with her to be with Gonzalez.