Austin was convicted of murder, two counts of armed kidnapping and sexual battery after a two-day bench trial, in which the judge—not a jury—decided the verdict. The source did not report a sentencing date.

McCray was abducted from her St. Johns Avenue apartment on Christmas Eve in 1985. Her roommate testified that he and McCray were bound while they slept and that he woke to someone standing over them. McCray was taken from the apartment; her body was later found beside a road near Interstate 295 on Jacksonville’s Westside. She had stab wounds to her neck.

The case was suspended in 1986 after evidence was collected. In 2019, McCray’s family pressed the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit to take another look. Austin was charged in 2021. Prosecutors said DNA evidence linked him to the killing.

At trial, prosecutors argued that Austin’s DNA connected him to the crime. The defense countered that Austin had lived in the apartment before McCray and said that was the only link placing him among the suspects. Austin was already serving two life sentences in Michigan for sexual conduct when he was charged in McCray’s death.

McCray’s roommate testified that he felt “terrorized and scared, and shaky” during the attack. He said the assailant ordered him to lie face down and bound his hands and feet. Under cross-examination, he testified that he and McCray had been intimate but were not dating.

The conviction follows years of uncertainty for McCray’s family and a renewed investigation into evidence preserved from the 1985 case.