A suspect has come forward and confessed to a cold case murder in which a prostitute was strangled and bludgeoned with a headstone and then left dead near the cemetery in Amazonia, Missouri.

The man, being held in the Missouri Department of Corrections for other crimes, says he wanted to give closure to the victim’s family.

Andrew County Prosecuting Attorney Steven Stevenson filed charges Wednesday against Michael R. Wilson, 55.

Wilson is formerly from St Joseph, but is currently in custody at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri.

Officials say Wilson wrote a five-page confession to the murder of Therese Campen in February, 1996. In a court affidavit, Andrew County Investigator Grant Gillett said Wilson confessed to investigators and a video camera.

Accourding to the affidavit, Wilson said he knew he was going to kill Campen the day he met her in Raytown, Missouri and discovered she was a prostitute. He arranged to meet her again. She drove him to Andrew County under the pretext of purchasing narcotics.

Instead he says they drove to the cemetery, where they engaged in acts of sex and bondage. Wilson says he strangled her with a black rubber hose while her hands were cuffed behind her back.

Wilson told investigators he then dragged her body off into a wooded area. To make sure she was dead, Wilson says he knocked the top off a limestone headstone and threw it onto her head.

Wilson also admitted stealing $15 in cash and some marijuana from Campen’s purse and then left the area.

He told investigators he wanted to get the case behind him and wanted the family members to have closure.

Prosecutor Stevenson filed alternate counts of first and second degree murder, and first degree robbery. Stevenson also filed notice with the court that Wilson is a prior and persistent offender, having been convicted of numerous felonies ranging from forgery to sodomy, rape, robbery and felonious restraint.

No court hearings have been scheduled. A judge ordered he be held without bond, although Wilson is currently in the custody of the Department of Corrections.