There is developing news in a 41-year-old double-murder case in Staunton.

Family members say police have identified the person responsible for murdering two young women at High's Ice Cream store in 1967.

Connie Hevener and Carolyn Perry lost their lives when family members say a female co-worker shot them.

So far, Staunton Police Chief Jim Williams is only saying that they have indeed received new information. They won't release any additional details in the case.

The brutal double killings stunned the Valley in the late 60s.

An Augusta County Sheriff's deputy was the first to respond. The crime didn't happen in the deputy's jurisdiction, but he says he was just too close by at the time to ignore it.

George Stephenson heard the news recently that the 1967 double-murder case may finally be solved. He didn't investigate the case, but he has a vested interest since he was the first law enforcement official on the scene.

"I knew whatever happened would not be my investigation," says Stephenson, who would go on to become Lieutenant of Investigations for the Augusta County Sheriff's Department before retiring in 1983. "But, I thought if I could have been any help when I heard the call, I darted in there."

He says he saw no one was in the front of the store, so he walked to the back.

"I saw two young girls lying on the floor. Very bloody, very bloody mess," says Stephenson. "I could see one was still living. She was flailing her arms. And, looking at the other one. I was 100-percent sure she was dead."

Perry was the one that was still alive, but barely. Stephenson went with her to King's Daughters Hospital.

"I gently grabbed her, or held her arms," says Stephenson. "And, I could see that she was losing breath, breath getting shorter and shorter and shorter. And I was holding her when she passed away. That was Mrs. Perry."

From that point on, the investigation was up to the Staunton Police Department.

"I just quietly walked out of the emergency room," says Stephenson. "That was it for me. I got back in my patrol car and continued on my duty. But, I never forgot it, to see a gruesome sight as I saw."

Stephenson says he wasn't sure he would live long enough to see a resolution in this 41-year-old case.

Staunton police say they have occasionally received new leads on this investigation over the decades.

Family members say they've been told by police that the woman suspected in the case has confessed to the killings.