Police in British Columbia announced Tuesday that they believe U.S. convicted killer Bobby Jack Fowler is responsible for the murder of a teenaged girl, who went missing and was found dead in 1974.

B.C. Mounties made the announcement at a news conference to update the public and the media on its E-PANA investigation, the code name given to the probe into 18 missing and murdered women in the province.

Insp. Gary Shinkaruk said Tuesday police matched a DNA sample found on the body of 16-year-old Colleen MacMillen to Fowler.

“Fowler is responsible for 16-year-old Colleen MacMillen’s murder,” Shinkaruk said.

Shinkaruk told reporters that in June 2007, the RCMP forensic lab in Vancouver identified a DNA profile for an unknown male in relation to the MacMillen case.

In 2012, investigators requested a re-examination of the profile, and a higher quality DNA sample was developed and submitted to Interpol, which gave police access to foreign DNA databases.

On May 3, 2012, the Oregon state police forensic lab indicated it had a match for the DNA sample: Fowler.

Colleen MacMillen was hitchhiking when she was killed in 1974. She was last seen in August of that year, when she set out to hitchhike along Highway 97, south of Prince George, to see friends. Her body was later found on a logging road.

MacMillen’s brother Shawn briefly addressed Tuesday’s news conference on behalf of his family, who he described as being “stunned” but “grateful” by the news.

"It has been a long wait for answers,” MacMillen said. “And though it is a somewhat unsatisfactory result because this individual cannot stand trial for what he did, we are comforted by the fact that he was in prison when he died and that he can’t hurt anyone else.”

Police said Fowler worked at a roofing company in Prince George in 1974. However, the company no longer exists and little is known about his time in the city.

Fowler was in jail from 1995 to 2006 serving a murder sentence and died of lung cancer while in prison in Lincoln County, Oregon.

Fowler did not have a criminal record in Canada.However, police said Tuesday he is still a suspect in other murders that are part of their investigation.

Police are also releasing photos and videos of Fowler in an attempt to map his movements during a 30 year period in B.C.

Some of the homicides that police have been investigating date back to the 1970s, and include disappearances along the “Highway of Tears,” the stretch of Highway 16 between Prince Rupert and Prince George where some of the victims’ remains have been discovered.

However, police aren’t convinced Fowler killed all 18 women and the families of the victims agree.

Gladys Radek says there is far too many victims for one killer. “There are far too many over too long a period of time.”

They say that other women were killed or went missing during that time period including Nicole Hoar, a 25-year-old Red Deer woman who disappeared in 2002.

Police have always said that they believe more than one serial killer could be involved in the murders.

(With files from CTVNews.ca)