BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) – A 51-year-old St. Louis man charged in the 2005 stabbing deaths of three people at a beauty salon is heading back to Illinois to face trial.

The Belleville News Democrat (http://bit.ly/2ntL0vq ) reports Samuel L. Johnson waived extradition proceedings Tuesday and would be transferred soon from Missouri to Illinois.

Johnson was charged in September with first-degree murder in the killings of 79-year-old Doris Fischer, 82-year-old Dorothy Bone and 62-year-old hairdresser Michael Cooney in Belleville.

Johnson had been arrested days after the killings, but was only charged with an attempted burglary of Cooney’s home in 2003. Prosecutors said they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him with murder. The Belleville Police Department reinitiated an investigation in 2014.

Johnson has been serving a seven-year term in Missouri for gun, drug and other charges.