The 1995 cold case of the brutal assault and fatal shooting of Nacole Smith has been solved, Newsweek reports.

Atlanta authorities identified the suspect as 49-year-old Kevin Arnold, who died while in hospice in Aug. 2020.

Nacole, who was 14 at the time of her death, took a different route to school. After an encounter with her killer in a forest, the teen was overpowered, raped and shot twice in the face.

“There are literal boxes and boxes and boxes of data, reports and evidence that have been analyzed as it relates to this case,” homicide commander Ralph Woolfolk said, according to the Daily Beast.

“You can see the incredible tenacity and resilience, and relentless effort, not only from these detectives but an entire family that has endured something like this for 26 years. We can only imagine how that might feel today — maybe getting some sort of answer about what happened here,” the Atlanta officer added.

Nacole's mother, Acquenellia Smith, spoke during a press conference, saying, “I never imagined this person to be deceased. So many unanswered questions that I had for him that I could never ask or get answers."

"I would never say it was closure for me because I’ll live with this pain for the rest of my life," the mother said.

During an exclusive with Atlanta's CBS 46 News, Nacole's mother said she saw pictures of Arnold and had disdain in her heart for her daughter’s killer.

"I stared at that picture for a good 10 minutes and honestly, I’m not going to dress it up, I felt hate,” she said. “I felt hate, anger, that’s what I felt.”

Arnold was 23 when he allegedly committed the crime. After Nacole was killed, Atlanta police collected blood samples from at least 50 potential suspects. The case quickly grew cold until Detective Vince Velazquez reopened the case in 2002, determined to find justice for the slain teen.

Before retiring, Velazquez learned about the rape of 13-year-old Betty Brown, whose attack was similar to Nacole's case and not far from where the 14-year-old was killed.

Detective Scott Demeester took over the cold case in 2017 following Velazquez’s retirement from the force.

Once Demeester secured a DNA sample from the collected evidence, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s forensic lab was able to make a match after Christmas. Arnold’s DNA lined up with the unsolved rape cases for both Nacole and Brown.

“It took a little over three years, but we were able to develop a person of interest,” Demeester said, according to the Daily Beast.

Arnold died last year in Fulton County due to liver and kidney failure, and was never arrested or charged in Nacole or Brown's cases.

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