A Lacombe man accused of slitting the throats of a middle aged couple 12 years ago during a botched robbery attempt was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder Tuesday.

Ronald Bickham, 42, who is serving a 60-year sentence in Angola for a 1998 armed robbery, was charged with the murders in March after Sheriff’s Office officials unearthed a long-missed spot of blood linking Bickham to the murders through DNA analysis.

Under Louisiana law, Bickham could face the death penalty for the 1995 murders of Lloyd Bedford and Barbara “Bobby Lee” Murray. Bickham is accused of stabbing the couple multiple times, leaving their bodies on the floor of their mobile home east of Covington and stealing Bedford’s wallet.

Since Bickham is currently serving the 60-year sentence, its unclear whether District Attorney Walter Reed will seek the death penalty, Reed spokesman Rick Wood said.

“No decision has been made on a capital verdict,” Wood said.

Authorities long considered Bickham a suspect in the Dec. 22 murders.

He lived less than 50 feet away from the couple on East 11th Street and had a propensity to rob people at knifepoint, investigators said.

But it wasn’t until 2004 that St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office investigators noticed a previously unrecognized blood spot while reviewing crime scene photos that was inconsistent with blood splat patterns of the victims.

The blood spot, found on the victim’s clothes, was sent to Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office crime lab for DNA analysis. Results indicated about a one in billion chance the blood did not belong to Bickham, Sheriff Jack Strain said at the time of the arrest.

Strain’s office spent the next two years searching for accomplices in the murder. To date, no others have been charged.