Hawaii County police today identified a previously unknown assailant in the notorious 1991 Christmas holiday rape and murder of Virginia visitor Dana Ireland, 23, as suspect Albert Lauro Jr., 57, who lived in the Kapoho area where Ireland was attacked.

For years, an unidentified suspect known only as “Unknown Male #1” had been linked to the case because of unidentified DNA found at the crime scene three decades ago.

Three original suspects arrested in connection with Ireland’s murder were later exonerated after officials could not link them to the DNA evidence found on Ireland’s body and at the crime scene.

Lauro apparently killed himself at home last week after an FBI agent and Hawaii County police had him under surveillance, found his DNA on a discarded fork and then administered a court-ordered DNA swab that linked him to Ireland’s rape, said Kenneth Lawson of the nonprofit Hawai‘i Innocence Project.

Lawson has joined attorneys in filing a motion seeking a hearing in Hilo Circuit Court on Tuesday to preserve all evidence in the case.

Hawaii County police have scheduled a press conference for later this afternoon.

Court records show that Lauro had nothing more serious on his criminal record than traffic citations and a civil court case involving a bank — but no criminal history of violence.

Lauro’s DNA match answers the question of who killed Ireland, but does not explain the circumstances, such as whether she had been targeted or whether her attack, rape and murder was “a crime of opportunity,” Lawson told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser today.

Ireland died of her injuries at Hilo Medical Center on Christmas Day 1991.

Her death drew national notoriety at the time, in part, because Ireland was a blonde and blue-eyed tourist who was killed during the Christmas holiday allegedly by three Native Hawaiian suspects — who were ultimately exonerated years later.

Lauro was “married with children and grandchildren,” Lawson said. “How do you tell your grandchildren that ‘a long time ago I raped and murdered someone in the biggest unsolved crime in Hawaii history and three innocent people went to jail even after my sperm was discovered in her?’”

In a statement, Hawaii County Police Chief Benjamin Moszkowicz said, “For 33 years, our Department has been resolute in investigating the Dana Ireland case. … Specifically, DNA was recovered from a swab taken from Ireland’s body, from a sheet used to transport Ireland to the hospital, and from a T-shirt found at the scene. While it was analyzed at the time, there was no match in any DNA database, and the person whose DNA was found at the scene became known as ‘Unknown Male #1.’”

Police said that in 2008, the DNA evidence was sent to the Forensic Analytical Crime Lab in California, “where it remains today, as part of a cooperative agreement with the Innocence Project.

This month, police said they collected “a utensil that he had been using after he (Lauro) discarded it. The DNA from the utensil was analyzed and found to be a match to ‘Unknown Male #1.’”

Anyone with information about the investigation should contact Hawaii Police Department Area I Criminal Investigation Division Capt. Rio Amon-Wilkins at (808) 961-2251 or via email at rio.amon-wilkins@hawaiicounty.gov.