COLUMBIA, Mo. • University of Missouri police are seeking outside help in the 2005 murder of a microbiology professor.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that the case of Jeong Im is headed to a multistate law enforcement organization in Springfield for review.

The 72-year-old researcher was stabbed to death in January 2005 before his body was stuffed into the trunk of his car, which was then set on fire in a campus parking garage.

University police chief Jack Watring says the Mid-States Organized Crime Information Center is one of six regional centers that help local police agencies solve major crimes.

Saturday is the seventh anniversary of Im's death. He was a semiretired protein chemist who immigrated to the United States from Korea as a young adult.

He was the father of twin daughters. He arrived in Columbia in 1987 and had been working about 10 hours weekly as a research professor in the departments of pharmacology and microbiology.

He also had worked at Boston University, the State University of New York in Buffalo, Ohio State University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.