The Region - News from Nov. 18, 1985

A Compton man pleaded innocent to a 1980 murder that went unsolved until police used the state’s new computerized fingerprint data bank to find him. Melvin Mikes, 25, entered the plea at his Long Beach Superior Court arraignment for the murder and robbery of Harold Hansen, 76, who was bludgeoned in his Long Beach television repair shop. Long Beach police lifted fingerprints from the shop but were unable to find a match. Police recently submitted all prints from their unsolved cases to the Department of Justice’s new computerized fingerprint data bank in Sacramento. Police were notified last month that a match had been made with prints taken from Mikes when he was detained in South Gate in 1979.