The 69-year-old Columbia man accused of killing two California police officers 45 years ago agreed on Wednesday to go to Los Angeles to face the charges.

Gerald Mason has worked out arrangements to leave for L.A. about March 7 but he has until March 11. Mason has been in Richland County jail since his Jan. 29 arrest.

A team of police officers from California will escort Mason to L.A.

He had been fighting extradition, but recognized it was unlikely he would succeed, said Chris Mills, one of his Columbia lawyers. A hearing had been scheduled for today.

Mason also dropped his opposition Wednesday to analysis of his DNA, which Los Angeles authorities took the day police surprised Mason at his Harbison-area home. It has been in L.A. awaiting testing.

Mason had been living a quiet life in South Carolina until police rang his doorbell and served murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery warrants.

He's accused in the shooting of El Segundo officers Milton Curtis, 25, and Richard Phillips, 28. They died July 22, 1957, after stopping a Ford for running a red light.

The Ford had been stolen just minutes before from teenagers who were parked at a lover's lane in nearby Hawthorne, police said. A 15-year-old girl was raped.

Los Angeles prosecutor John Zajec said Mason will be held in the L.A. County jail and he's unlikely to get bail.

A trial is at least a year away, Zajec estimates.

Mason is entitled to an arraignment within 48 hours of arriving in the Southern California jail and a probable cause hearing within 10 additional days, Zajec said. Those timetables can be adjusted, Zajec said.

It's unclear whether Mason will keep his S.C. lawyers - Mills and Gaston Fairey - or hire California attorneys.

Mason's family and friends insist he is innocent and his arrest is a case of mistaken identity.

But a retired El Segundo police officer who was at the scene that summer night has picked Mason out of a photographic lineup, court documents show.

In addition, handwriting analyses have determined that Mason bought the murder weapon at a Sears store in Shreveport, La., four days before the shooting, investigators contend.

Three fingerprints found in the Ford finally led investigators to Mason in September after years of frustration.

They tracked the prints to Mason, a retired businessman, after the L.A. County Sheriff's Department gained access to a national FBI fingerprint database. Mason's fingerprints were on file because of 1956 convictions for housebreaking and petty larceny in Columbia.