An Oil City man was arrested in the strangulation death and rape of a 70-year-old woman whose body was found along a bike trail in the city.

David Allen Bosley, 59, was arrested Thursday, April 6, and charged with homicide, rape, aggravated indecent assault, abuse of a corpse and two counts of kidnapping. He is being held in Venango County Prison without bail.

The body of Marcy Suzette Nellis was found along the trail March 27 after she was reported missing previous evening, and a search for her that lasted into the morning was not successful, according to District Attorney D. Shawn White.

After a state police aviation unit located the body, Oil City police and state police began an investigation and implemented security measures by placing undercover officers, officers in marked and unmarked vehicles and surveillance cameras around the trial and Bosley’s home, White said.

Bosley immediately was identified as a person of interest, White said. Evidence that was collected, which included a rape kit, was delivered to the state police crime lab in Erie on March 30.

After serology testing was completed, the evidence was transferred Monday to the state police crime lab in Greensburg for DNA profiling. Results received Thursday linked Bosley to the crime, White said, and he was arrested without incident that day.

An autopsy conducted March 29 found the cause of death was asphyxiation due to manual strangulation, and the victim had been sexually assaulted, he said.

A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for April 19 before District Judge Andrew Fish in Oil City.

Bosley is listed as sexual offender under the state’s Megan’s Law with a lifetime requirement to regularly report to state police. He was required to begin reporting in April 2019 after he was convicted of aggravated indecent assault and attempted rape in 2000 for an incident that took place in Pinegrove Township, Venango County, in May 1999.