ATLANTA (AP) — After legal battles that spanned nearly three decades, a jury has convicted a man of kidnapping and killing an IBM executive in 1984.

The Fulton County jury on Thursday found 65-year-old Curtis Tyner guilty of robbery, kidnapping, murder and other charges in the slaying of Martha Anne Mickel.

Mickel had hired Tyner to paint her apartment in Smyrna 29 years ago. Prosecutors say he stalked her, stole her house key and then forced her into her car, tied her up, sexually assaulted her and threw her into a nearby Fulton County creek, where she drowned. He later pleaded guilty.

In 2011, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned his conviction, saying that no one fully informed the then-36-year-old of all the rights he was waiving when he made a guilty plea.

This week's verdict means that Tyner will serve a life prison sentence, despite having the earlier conviction thrown out by the Georgia Supreme Court, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.