A 78-year-old man who is currently in prison has been charged with the sexual assault and murder of a 25-year-old Texas nursing student back in 1980, according to a press release by the Austin police on Friday.
Police have announced a breakthrough in a decades-old case involving the kidnapping and murder of Susan Leigh Wolfe. Using DNA technology, authorities have identified Deck Brewer Jr., who is currently serving time in Massachusetts for an unrelated crime, as the alleged perpetrator. The incident occurred on January 9, 1980, when Wolfe was walking to a friend’s house and was tragically killed just a block away from her home at around 10 p.m.
Tragically, Wolfe’s life was cut short just days after enrolling at the University of Texas Austin School of Nursing and on the brink of celebrating her 26th birthday.
A witness to the incident reported seeing a vehicle come to a halt, and the perpetrator swiftly took hold of Wolfe from the pavement, enveloping her in a tight embrace. The suspect then proceeded to usher her into the car, concealing her identity with a coat.
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Authorities discovered her lifeless body in an alley the following morning, revealing signs of both strangulation and sexual assault. According to the witness, there was a potential second suspect in the car.
During the initial year, the Austin Police Department diligently pursued numerous leads, with a significant number of individuals considered as potential persons of interest. Additionally, they conducted interviews with at least six suspects.
Last year in April, detectives from the department’s Cold Case Unit sent crime scene DNA evidence to the Texas DPS Crime Laboratory. In February of this year, the results came in and ruled out the six known suspects.
The evidence was added to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a comprehensive national database that stores DNA information from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scenes, and missing persons.
In March, Brewer was identified as a potential match. Then, in the previous month, Brewer was identified as a match following a DNA search warrant.
Brewer acknowledged to investigators that he had been in Austin during the time of the murder, but declined to provide further details without legal representation.
The APD reported that the probability of Brewer’s DNA being matched incorrectly is extremely low, with a chance of one in 550.5 quintillion.
The investigation is ongoing and authorities are working to identify the individual reported by the witness to have been in the passenger seat during Wolfe’s abduction.
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