Nearly 24 years after the shooting death of Edward Paulsen, then a 28-year old Harvard graduate student studying economics, police in Canada arrested a man long sought as a suspect in the murder.

Around 9 a.m. Wednesday, officers of the Canadian Immigration Task Force, working with both the FBI and Cambridge homicide detectives, arrested James Anthony Martin, 51, at his home in Montreal, according to the Cambridge Police Department (CPD).

Martin left Massachusetts after the crime and had lived in Florida, New York and Montreal under assumed names since then. When asked if he was James Anthony Martin, the suspect just shrugged and surrendered.

"He believed he would never be caught," said CPD Sergeant Patrick Nagle yesterday.

The Sept. 9, 1976 murder was the result of a botched drug deal, according to police. Paulsen and his brother were trying to purchase one kilo of hashish from Martin at a location on Webster Street in East Cambridge.

According to Nagle, Martin, along with Gordon Kent Brown, were planning to take Paulsen's money but not actually give him the drugs. When the plan backfired, Martin shot Paulsen.

Brown spent six years on the run before he was captured in New Jersey in 1982 and later convicted of murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Martin was picked up on drug charges in New York shortly after the murder but used an alias and was able to leave town before his trial, according to Silverio Ferreira, a CPD detective.