HOUSTON -- A man has been charged in connection with a 75-year-old man's cold-case killing, officials told KPRC Local 2 Tuesday.

Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas said Frank Daniel Johnson III admitted to fatally beating Leonard Jacobson on Aug. 26, 1997.

Johnson told detectives that Jacobson said something at the Indian Shores Golf Course on Lake Houston that made him mad.

Jacobson was killed inside the pro shop and bloody fingerprints were found on the cash register, officials said.

An anonymous tip received in April led detectives to Johnson, investigators said. Johnson was already in custody on an unrelated charge when the tip was made.

Detectives said Johnson, 44, assaulted his ex-wife.

"They reviewed the case and found that he had indeed beat his ex-wife with a pipe wrench, severely beat her," Thomas said. "The crime scene unit compared Johnson's fingerprints to those found at the scene and verified that they were his."

Investigators said Johnson told them that he was distraught about a divorce and recent deaths of friends and family members at the time of the slaying.

"That doesn't count for what he did," said Catherine Jacobson, Leonard's widow. "He didn't have to kill. Everybody has problems but they don't take it out that way."

Jacobson said she did not think she would live to find out who killed her husband.

"It shocked me to know they had him," she said.

Johnson has been charged with murder. His bond has been set at $50,000.