SYRACUSE - A convicted Georgia serial killer will not be charged with murder in New York despite being linked by DNA evidence to the 1975 rape and strangulation of a Syracuse school teacher, a prosecutor said Monday.

Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said DNA evidence conclusively tied inmate Carlton Gary to the slaying of 40-year-old Marion Fisher, but he decided to close the case after discussing it with her husband - once the primary suspect.

Fitzpatrick said there was no reason to prosecute Gary in New York at this point because of his impending execution.

“I want to state unequivocally today that there is no reasonable doubt that Carlton Gary ... murdered Marion Fisher,” Fitzpatrick said. “I have decided ... it is not in the interest of justice to bring Carlton Gary back to Onondaga County for trial. I have anticipated all possible scenarios and I believe the worst case scenario is that Carlton Gary will spend the rest of his life incarcerated in a maximum security facility in Georgia.”

Fitzpatrick said bringing Gary back to New York would only give the death row inmate a chance to escape.

“Carlton Gary has escaped from correctional facilities at least three times in the past. There is no doubt that if he were to be brought back to Onondaga County he would certainly make efforts to escape,” the prosecutor said.

Gary was convicted in 1986 of raping and strangling three of the seven elderly women found dead in their Columbus, Ga., homes between Sept. 15, 1977, and April 20, 1978. Now 56, Gary remains on Georgia's death row. He was denied a new trial in May and has appealed the decision. The cases were known in Columbus as the “stocking stranglings” because some of the victims were strangled with their own underwear.

Onondaga County detectives interviewed Gary earlier this year. Fitzpatrick said Gary made up a “preposterous story” about meeting Fisher, but denied killing her.

Fisher was found dead in a field. Investigators learned she had been walking home from a bar after a fight with her husband.

Onondaga County authorities first began testing DNA material found on Fisher's body in 2004. In June, they re-tested a red towel found at the crime scene and in July it came back with a positive hit from the national DNA database identifying Gary as the source, Fitzpatrick said.

Gary had been arrested in the Syracuse area for parole violations in 1975 and escaped from the Jamesville Correctional Facility in 1977, Fitzpatrick said.