Nearly four years after the murder of Eastern student Amy Blumberg at her uncle’s dance apparel store, O’Fallon Police have charged a suspect.

Edward Scott “Eddie” Phillips, of the west central Illinois town of Mount Sterling, was already in jail for unrelated offenses when police charged him Dec. 19, O’Fallon Police Sgt. Mark Berry confirmed Sunday.

Blumberg was a 20-year-old junior family and consumer sciences major at Eastern when she was killed while working at her uncle’s store Dec. 31, 1999 in the St. Louis suburb of O’Fallon.

The Collinsville resident and member of Eastern’s Sigma Kappa sorority was shot once in the head, O’Fallon police told the The Daily Eastern News when the crime occurred.

Blumberg’s parents say they didn’t worry their daughter’s case would go unsolved, but her father Kenneth Blumberg admitted they were relieved when they heard police had a suspect.

“We always thought we would see this case solved, but we decided if we never did, that was something we could live with,” he said Sunday.

The Blumberg’s haven’t decided whether to attend Phillips’ trial.

President Lou Hencken, who was vice president for student affairs at the time of Blumberg’s death, said the call from the O’Fallon police was the first he received in 2000. He said he worried since then that leads in the case would grow cold as years passed.

“Sometimes when cases go, like, three years or so, the clues dry up,” he said. “But I understand the police never gave up and kept working.”

Hencken said that assuming Phillips’ arrest leads to a conviction, he hopes it will bring closure to the Blumberg family.

“It’s very difficult to lose someone, of course,” he said. “But to never be able to catch the person and realize they’re still walking around must be worse.”

The university does not yet have plans for memorials like the ones that took place during the trial for Anthony Mertz, convicted last spring of murdering Eastern student Shannon McNamara in the summer of 2001.

Hencken said, however, that the administration would be in contact with the Counseling Center to discuss any such plans this week.