Updated 12 a.m. 3/6/10

FAIRBANKS — Sandy Valladares sat in San Antonio, Texas, with a phone to her ear, silently praying and holding her breath. It was Thursday afternoon and on the other line was a Kenai courtroom.

Superior Court Judge Anna Moran was about to read the verdict concluding the grueling month-long murder trial of a Fairbanks man, 56-year-old Jimmy Lee Eacker, who was accused of killing Valladares’ mother, Toni Lister, in Seward 28 years ago today.

“Guilty,” the judge said.

Valladares said she burst into tears.

“It was wonderful to hear that,” the 40-year-old real estate agent said, “to be able to be a part of it even though I wasn’t there.”

Valladares, the oldest of her mother’s four daughters, was 12 when Lister went missing following a night out with friends. Her body was found about six weeks later in a wooded area near the Seward city dump. She was 29.

An autopsy indicated that Lister had been sexually assaulted and stabbed in the chest, head and neck with a Phillips screwdriver, according to Alaska State Troopers.

Eacker was a classmate of Lister’s husband at a trade school in Seward and a friend of the Listers.

Seward police suspected Eacker but they never charged him with the murder. Four years ago, the small Seward Police Department asked the troopers cold case unit to take over the case, the only unsolved homicide in the coastal city of 2,619 people located about 125 highway miles south of Anchorage.

Evidence was submitted to the state crime laboratory for DNA testing using technology unavailable at the time of the killing.

“A year later, the cold case unit had gathered evidence for a strong case against Eacker,” a trooper statement said.

Late in the summer of 2007, a grand jury indicted Eacker for murder. The indictment was kept secret until authorities arrested Eacker at his home off the Steese Highway in Fairbanks.

After his arrest, friends, speaking on a condition of anonymity, described Eacker as loyal and hard-working. They said he quit his job as a chef at a diner following multiple heart attacks and he began doing odd jobs.

Eacker knew that Lister’s homicide investigation had been rekindled, the friends said. Investigators had been visiting him for about a year, and Eacker had agreed to talk with them at the Peger Road trooper post.

Eacker maintains he does not remember killing Lister, and Eacker is a registered sex offender after a 1991 conviction in Kenai for second-degree attempted sexual abuse of a minor, according to Alaska court records.

Toni Lister was raised on the Kenai Peninsula.

Her sister, Deborah Davis of Soldotna, attended every day of the murder trial, she said.

“It was very hard,” Davis said.

She said she felt authorities presented a strong case, especially with the DNA evidence. The jury deliberated for two days before convicting Eacker of first-degree murder.

“There was a lot of expert testimony,” Davis said. “The evidence all pointed in one direction. We couldn’t be happier with our prosecutor. He was amazing,” she said of Pat Gullufsen.

Eacker showed no emotion throughout the trial and did not testify, according to Davis. She doesn’t anticipate he’ll show remorse at his May 27 sentencing.

“The justice for Toni is what is important for me,” Davis said. “We’ve waited 28 years to see some kind of justice brought for Toni and her murder.”

Valladares and her sisters wrote a letter thanking authorities in Alaska for pursuing the case.

“When we were little, we never really knew what happened to her exactly,” Valladares said. “Our dad tied to shield us from a lot of the information because we were so young. We always thought we might turn a corner and see her ... The verdict doesn’t really bring our mom back but it does give us a sense of closure and peace and vindication for our mom.”

Lister is buried in Kasilof, and the family is planning a special memorial service.