A man living in Delaware is accused of fatally stabbing his former girlfriend, who was found dead 28 years ago in a ditch along a highway in Florida, officials announced Wednesday.

Stephen L. Ford, 72, was charged with second-degree murder with a weapon in the death of his live-in girlfriend, Doris Korell, who was reported missing on Dec. 11, 1996. She was found dead four days later, lying face-down in a drainage canal in Palmetto, and had been stabbed 83 times, according to the Manatee County Sheriffs Office though it would be months before law enforcement identified her.