Law enforcement sources said Dickson is believed to have a "foot fetish" and gets enjoyment from smelling women's sneakers and socks.
Police said they had been to Dickson's apartment several weeks ago with a search warrant and found about two dozen pairs of women's white sneakers, all used.
They also confiscated videos of women doing aerobic exercises wearing white sneakers, as well as photographs, possibly taken by Dickson, of women in outdoor settings wearing white sneakers.
Sources said Dickson is a suspect in burglaries in which women's white sneakers were stolen from Army personnel. Dickson formerly lived on the Philadelphia Naval Base.
Police said Dickson was working the midnight to 8 a.m. shift at Drexel on Nov. 30, 1984, and was supposed to escort Wilson to her car because she had been studying late.
Her body was found at 9 a.m. by passing students outside Randell Hall on Ludlow Street near 31st in University City.
Wilson, a math major who was planning a career as an engineer, worked late in the computer room of Randell Hall that night on a project that had to be turned in the next day, police said.
Police speculated that she had been killed in the computer room and her body dragged outside.
Police sources said Dickson had been a suspect all along, but there was never enough evidence to arrest him.
The case had been in the hands of an investigating grand jury for 18 months with the police homicide division's special investigations unit and the district attorney's office working on the probe.
The grand jury recommended Dickson's arrest on murder and related charges.
Police said detectives saw Dickson coming out of one of the Presidential Apartments buildings when they arrived to arrest him yesterday. He spotted the officers, turned and went back inside, police said. They took him into custody on the 12th floor.
Police said Dickson made no statement.
