PRAIRIE VILLAGE ? A former janitor at a high school located near the spot where a 13-year-old girl disappeared 29 years ago has been arrested in northeast Missouri and charged with the girl’s murder, police said Wednesday.

John H. Horton, 56, was taken into custody late Tuesday in Canton, Mo., where he has been living and working at a manufacturing job, Prairie Village Police Lt. John Walter said.

At a court hearing Wednesday in Lewis County, Mo., Horton agreed to be returned to Johnson County, Kan., where he is charged with first-degree felony murder. His transfer was being arranged late Wednesday afternoon.

Horton is accused of abducting Lizabeth Wilson on the evening of July 7, 1974, as she and her 11-year-old brother walked home from the Prairie Village public swimming pool. The pool is located near Shawnee Mission East High School, where Horton — then living in Independence, Mo. — was employed as a janitor.

After a massive search throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area, the girl’s skull was found in a wooded area in Lenexa, several miles from where she disappeared.

Horton was the initial target of the investigation and was questioned extensively, but no one was ever charged. In April 2001 a Prairie Village detective began looking at the case anew, and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s Cold Case Squad joined the effort in January 2002.

Newer investigative methods developed in recent years, including DNA technology, helped lead to Horton’s arrest this week, police said.

Lizabeth’s survivors no longer live in the area but have been supportive of the renewed investigation, Walter said. He declined to say where the Wilsons now live, citing privacy concerns.

“We actually contacted them back in 2001 and asked if they would be supportive of us reinvestigating,” Walter said.

“They were excited that someone still cared after 25 years.”

The family was told of Horton’s arrest immediately after he was taken into custody about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday by officers from Prairie Village, the KBI Cold Case Squad and the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Walter said.

Although Lizabeth disappeared while walking the short distance home with her younger brother about 7:15 p.m. on July 7, 1974, the boy did not witness her abduction.

The brother said he was walking ahead of her and turned around to see her running toward him in her bathing suit and sandals. Thinking she was playing a game, he began running as well and arrived home alone.

For a couple of hours that evening, Lizabeth’s family thought the girl had gone to a friend’s house, but she apparently was taken while she was crossing the grounds of Shawnee Mission East High School.