Federal and state law enforcement officials in Georgia used genealogy DNA to identify both a murder victim and her killer in a 1988 homicide that went unsolved for decades.

They say it’s the first time the novel but controversial forensic technique that connects the DNA profiles of different family members was used to learn the identities of both the victim and the perpetrator in the same case.

“It’s extremely unique,” Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent in charge Joe Montgomery said at a recent press conference. “That, to me, is incredible because as an agent you live with these cases.”

In March, investigators announced they had identified a body found on a Georgia highway in 1988 as Stacey Lyn Chahorski, a Michigan woman who had been missing for more than three decades.

For years, authorities were unable to figure out who the woman was, until the GBI and the FBI used genealogy DNA to uncover Chahorski’s identity.

On Tuesday, investigators announced they had answered the other question that remained in the case: Chahorski had been killed by a man named Henry Fredrick Wise.

Wise was also identified through genealogy DNA, officials said.

Law enforcement officials had found what they believed to be the killer’s DNA at the crime scene, but they were never able to link it to a person.

Recently, authorities sent the DNA to a specialized lab, which created a genealogical profile for the suspect and produced new leads for investigators to run down.

“The investigation revealed…