An Alabama man convicted in the 1982 murder of a Sammy’s Go-Go dancer has pleaded guilty a Massachusetts murder of a sex worker.

Steven Fike, 65, entered his guilty plea Wednesday to a reduced charge of manslaughter in the 1980 killing of 19-year-old Wendy Dansereau at a Boston motel.

“After 45 years, and thanks to advances in DNA science, the collection of evidence by Alabama authorities, and the perseverance of investigators here,’’ said Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden, “Wendy Dansereau’s family at last has an answer about who was responsible for her tragic death.”

Fike received a 13 to 15-year sentence to run concurrently with his Alabama sentence. He will be returned to Alabama to serve out his life sentence.

Fike was first linked by DNA in 2019 to Dansereau’s murder and then arrested for the crime in 2022.

A Birmingham native described as a drifter, Fike was convicted when he was 23 years in the Jan. 30, 1982, rape and murder of Patricia Ann Culp, a dancer at Sammy’s on Third Avenue West in Birmingham.

He was sentenced to life in prison and is an inmate at Elmore Correctional Facility.

The 20-year-old Culp was last seen entering the Hiway Host Motel on Bessemer Super Highway.

Her body was later found in a ditch, in about six inches of water, alongside Interstate 59 in Tuscaloosa County.

An autopsy later showed Culp died from “a severe blow to the back of her head.”

The manager of the Birmingham motel testified that Fike and Culp arrived in the early morning hours of Jan. 30, 1982, at the motel in a red car. They registered and went to Room 330.

The next morning the housekeeper discovered that one of the beds in Room 330 had been stripped and all the linens, bedspread, and blanket were missing from the room. Traces of blood were found in various areas of the motel room, including on the mattress.

Several witnesses testified they saw Fike at the Omelette Shop near the Birmingham Airport about 10 a.m. Jan. 30. He was seen driving a red Mustang.

Later that morning, Fike bought some new shoes. He then went to the Ramada Inn near the airport around 1 p.m. where he was seen changing clothes in the men’s room at this time.

Fike gave a bag containing shoes and keys to the Ramada Inn desk clerk. He then had the driver of the Ramada Inn van take him to get cigarettes and drop him at the airport.

Later that day, one of the security officers for the Ramada Inn noticed a red Mustang with a broken window.

When he looked inside the car, he found a tote bag which contained a sheer nightgown, panties, make-up and a pill bottle with the name Patricia Culp on it.

Photographs of Culp were found in the glove compartment. Blood was found in the trunk of the car, and a tire tool with hair fibers on it was also recovered in the trunk.

Fike was identified as the suspect after investigators composed a sketch of the suspect through witness descriptions and then police files.

A murder warrant was issued, and a nationwide alert sent to law enforcement agencies across the country. Fike was eventually arrested in Atlanta.

In Dansereau’s killing, Massachusetts authorities said an employee of the Hotel Diplomat in Boston’s South End discovered Dansereau’s body inside a hotel room on March 18, 1980.

She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Assistant District Attorney John Verner the room showed signs of a struggle

Dansereau had a red scarf tied around her neck with ligature marks under the scarf. Her clothes were found scattered around the room and her bra was damaged.

The investigation determined that Dansereau had entered the hotel earlier with a customer.

The medical examiner collected oral, anal and vaginal samples during the autopsy. Despite the best efforts of investigators, the case went unsolved, Verner said.

In 2011 investigators entered the sample evidence into the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and obtained a match between a vaginal sperm sample and DNA obtained from Fike after his conviction in Alabama.

Partially-smoked cigarettes from the hotel room also matched Fike’s DNA, Verner said.

When interviewed by Boston homicide detectives in April 2018 in Alabama, Fike denied ever having been in Boston. He continued his denials when confronted with the evidence of his DNA in Dansereau’s body, Verner said.

Fike placed himself in Keene, NH around the time of Dansereau’s murder.

Police reports from Keene show that Fike committed a petty larceny about 12 hours before Dansereau entered the Diplomat Hotel with a customer, Verner said.