Gerald Dean Metcalf must have wondered when – or if – San Diego police would knock on his door and ask him about Gerald Jackson, a gay man Metcalf met at Horton Plaza more than three decades ago, and who was stabbed to death in December, 1971.

It took 37 years, but aided by DNA evidence and modern fingerprint technology, police say the 1971 murder of Gerald Jackson is solved.

Jackson, 27, worked part time at the Barbary Coast bar, a gay bar located on Pacific Highway in the early 1970s.

Metcalf, who turned 61 years old on Dec. 20, is charged with Jackson’s murder – a murder Metcalf allegedly committed when he was 24.

The knock on Metcalf’s door by San Diego Police Detective John Tefft came in late August in the 21000 block of Easy Street, in Chandler, Texas, a town of 2,000 residents, where Metcalf lived with his wife.

Metcalf has since been extradited to California, and now resides in the Downtown central jail on $1 million bail. He has pleaded not guilty and has a preliminary hearing set for Jan. 15 in San Diego Superior Court.

Metcalf told Tefft, a homicide detective with the department’s cold case team, Jackson picked Metcalf up in Horton Plaza on Dec. 29, 1971, and took him to Jackson’s apartment in Pacific Beach, according to court records.

Jackson’s nude body was later found in his bedroom. He had been stabbed 55 times.

In the 1970s, Horton Plaza was a seedy park area, with two underground restrooms, and gay men cruised around. In the area around the plaza, all-night adult movie houses and bars operated, and prostitution was rampant, attracting many sailors who docked in the San Diego bay.

Metcalf, a former sailor, was stationed in San Diego. He joined at 18, and court records show he was discharged for a medical disability.

On Dec. 29 when the Barbary Coast bar closed at 2 a.m. Jackson went to Horton Plaza and was seen cruising the area around 2:30 a.m., according to two witnesses who told police they saw him there.

When police found Jackson’s body later, they found a cigarette butt they say links Metcalf to the crime. It has traces of the suspect’s DNA on it. They also found fingerprints and a palm print, according to Metcalf’s 13-page arrest warrant.

Immediately after finding Jackson’s body, San Diego Police put out a teletype notification to all law enforcement agencies for Jackson’s 1971 Ford Torino, which they determined was stolen.

Also missing from the apartment was a Nivico model AM/FM stereo that had a serial number on it.

The car was found in Calexico on Jan. 6, 1972. Pawn shops in Calexico were checked, and Jackson’s stereo receiver was found. On it, in dried blood, was a palm print. The fingerprints and palm prints were preserved. The person who pawned the stereo used Jackson’s stolen identification. Police issued a warrant for the arrest of anyone using the identification of Gerald Jackson.

Police detectives interviewed Jackson’s friends, acquaintances, and checked bars and bathhouses, but no lead in the case was found. A list of military men who were on unauthorized leave on Dec. 29, 1971, was obtained, but it produced no suspects.

The fingerprints of Jackson’s friends and acquaintances were taken and they were eliminated as suspects in the crime since they didn’t match the unknown fingerprints at the scene and on the stereo. Computer analysis of fingerprints did not exist at the time. Eventually, the police department inactivated the case.

In 1995, however, the police department formed a cold case team to reinvestigate old crimes. In 2005, various items with blood from the crime scene were examined for the presence of DNA, but the blood had degenerated to a level that obtaining a DNA profile wasn’t possible, according to Tefft’s declaration.

On Jan. 30, 2008, the police department submitted the fingerprints to the FBI’s database. On April 30, the FBI notified police they got a “hit” from fingerprints taken of Metcalf who was arrested in 1984 in Texas for murder, but a jury had acquitted him. Metcalf’s palm prints were taken in that 1984 arrest, and they matched the palm print found on the stereo in 1972.

Tefft was assigned the case on May 15 and the case was revived.

Authorities wanted to match the fingerprints and palm prints with Metcalf again, and Tefft was able to obtain a warrant from a Texas judge to take the prints of the suspect. On Aug. 27, Tefft, a forensic specialist and two Texas officials knocked on Metcalf’s door.

Metcalf agreed to accompany authorities to a Texas sheriff’s station where his prints were taken again, but he wasn’t told it was for a 1971 murder investigation. Metcalf was not under arrest, but he was asked if he knew Gerald Jackson or had a reason why his fingerprints would be in Jackson’s car or apartment.

Initially, Metcalf said he had memory problems and could not recall anything that happened in 1971 in San Diego. He told Tefft he wanted to terminate the interview and go home, which he was allowed to do. Tefft asked him if he could call him the next day, and Metcalf said yes.

When Metcalf talked with Tefft again, he was quoted as saying, “I never told anyone about what happened in San Diego. I never told my wife.”

Metcalf agreed to be interviewed in person again.

Metcalf then confessed to the slaying in a tape recorded interview conducted by Tefft outside Metcalf’s home. He said he remembered being picked up by a man and taken to his apartment. Metcalf said he allowed himself to be picked up because he was “cold, tired and hungry.”

Jackson fed him and then gave him scotch. He said he didn’t remember the man’s name.

Jackson asked him to sleep in the same bed with him, and Metcalf agreed, telling the detective he took off all his clothes and got in bed with him. Then Jackson told him to “go down on him,” according to Metcalf, who said he refused.

Metcalf told the detective Jackson got up from bed, grabbed a knife, and ordered him to perform oral sex on him. Metcalf claimed he was “in the fight of his life” and “blacked out” the details, he said.

Metcalf said he fled the apartment and took Jackson’s car keys.

He spent the night in the vehicle, and remembers leaving it somewhere with the keys in it.

When asked about pawning the stereo and taking the victim’s wallet, Metcalf said he did not remember doing so. The detective showed Metcalf a copy of the handwriting at the pawn shop, and Metcalf agreed it looked like his handwriting.

“They got the right guy,” said Metcalf’s attorney, Gary Gibson, to a reporter on Monday. “The issue is: Why did it happen? The guy tried to rape him. He was in shock. The issue isn’t who killed Mr. Jackson. It’s not a whodunit from 1971. It’s a ‘Why did it happen?’”

Gibson said Metcalf was homeless in 1971 when he met Jackson and went home with him that cold December night 37 years ago.

Metcalf is not gay, said Gibson, and he says his client acted in self-defense.

Gibson said “a lot of the material witnesses are dead,” including Jackson’s friends and police department officials who investigated the case.

Gibson also noted that Metcalf’s blood was found at the scene.

Metcalf told Tefft he was stabbed on his left inner leg. When Tefft asked him to show him a scar, Metcalf said the scar “may have gone away or moved” on his body. He was reluctant to change into shorts to show him the scar, but he did, Tefft wrote. A photographer took a picture of a small scar on his ankle.

Metcalf was asked by Tefft about the 1984 murder case brought against him in Texas that involved the death of a friend hit with a baseball bat. Metcalf said the jury acquitted him because he acted in self-defense.