MERRILLVILLE | DNA test results released Thursday in the 28-year-old unsolved murders of two young women in Merrillville proved what police detectives say they knew all along: They had the case figured out from the start.

And Merrillville police also believe the new revelations vindicate a police detective whose work in the case was called into question by a judge.

Indiana State Police said early Thursday they believe two men -- both of whom died last year -- killed Toni Penner and Paula Otterman, both 20, on Feb. 1, 1979.

Merrillville police confirmed that DNA evidence recovered from the crime scene matched suspects John Allen Haak and Willard "Butch" Melcher. DNA processing was unavailable in 1979.

Haak, also known as "Sticks," originally was charged with the murders, but the state dropped the counts saying there was not enough evidence to move forward with the case.

Melcher had been arrested in Kankakee, Ill., with Otterman's car shortly after the victims' bodies were found. Police initially accused him of keeping the car without her permission, but that charge was later dropped.

The investigation was virtually abandoned after its collapse in court -- leaving a residue of bitterness among all involved.

Haak sued Merrillville police Detective Paul DeHaven, the lead investigator in the case and one of the 13 founding officers of the department, for an alleged civil rights violation in the matter. A federal judge later dismissed the suit.

Haak then came under suspicion as a prime suspect in the 1988 murder-for-hire death of John Pronger, 65, of Schererville.

Haak was convicted Oct. 1, 1996, of that killing and was serving time in state prison on Dec. 6 of last year when he died of abdominal cancer in the infirmary of the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility.

Melcher, 50, address unknown, died at St. Margaret Mercy Healthcare Centers on July 17, 2006. His cause of death was not revealed, but the Lake County Coroner's Office said they did not investigate the death as anything suspicious.

Police who worked the 1979 case throughout its nearly 30-year investigation said the DNA findings vindicate Detective DeHaven, who died in 1999 at the age of 52 of a heart attack.

"We had physical evidence, but the judge threw it out and called Paul overzealous," said Jerry McCory, a former Merrillville police chief and now an aide to Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson.

McCory was a Merrillville police detective when the case broke in 1979. The investigation carried over when he later became police chief. McCory said the DNA evidence proves "Paul was right."

Indiana State Police Detective Al Williamson, a member of the state police Cold Case Team, said Merrillville police asked the team to look at the case more than two years ago. More than 30 pieces of evidence housed at the Lake County sheriff's crime lab were sent to the state crime lab for DNA testing, with the results just coming back in recent weeks.

Williamson said the pieces that came back as a match to Haak and Melcher were not the hair found in the victims' hands or anything on a beer mug that had been found at the scene, adding he could not specify what was tested.

Without that information, one of the former prosecutors in the case against Haak, Thomas Vanes, said he was not "sure if the case is resolved."

"It would depend on what kind of DNA evidence they have and where they found it," he said.

Vanes said evidence indicated Melcher and Haak had previously been admitted into the apartment voluntarily.

"Their presence in the apartment was not in dispute," Vanes said.

Williamson said he personally contacted family members to notify them of the findings.

"I kept in constant contact with both girls' families since I began working this case," Williamson said. "They were happy to have some knowledge of who committed these crimes."

Joan Penner of Portage, Toni Penner's mother, said Thursday morning she did not want to discuss the findings in her daughter's murder case.

-- Times Columnist Mark Kiesling contributed to this report.