DNA Evidence Identifies Suspect in 1980 Murder of Texas Nursing Student, 78-Year-Old Charged

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According to a news release issued by Austin police on Friday, a 78-year-old man who is currently serving a sentence of nearly 2,000 miles distant has been charged with the 1980 sexual assault and murder of a 25-year-old nursing student in Texas.

Thanks to DNA testing, authorities believe Deck Brewer Jr., who is presently serving time in Massachusetts for an unrelated offense, abducted and murdered Susan Leigh Wolfe on January 9, 1980, at around 10 p.m., while she was walking to a friend’s house.

At the time of her murder, Wolfe was four days shy of turning 26 and had recently started classes at the University of Texas Austin School of Nursing.

A witness to the kidnapping claimed to have seen a car stop, at which point the suspect gave Wolfe a “bear hug” and forced her inside by covering her head with a coat.

The following morning, investigators discovered her dead in an alley from a gunshot wound, along with signs of sexual abuse and strangulation. In addition, the witness said he spotted another individual in the vehicle, who might have been a second suspect.

Austin Police Department detectives pursued scores of leads in their first year of work, interviewing at least six suspects and reaching as many as forty persons of interest at one time.

The six known suspects were ruled out in February of last year after crime scene DNA evidence from the department’s Cold Case Unit was submitted to the Texas DPS Crime Laboratory in April of last year.

The evidence was added to the national DNA database of convicted criminals, unresolved crime scene evidence, and missing people, known as the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).

Brewer was noted as a potential match in March. Then, following a DNA search request last month, Brewer was found to be a match.

Brewer told detectives he had been in Austin at the time of the murder, but he wouldn’t go further without consulting an attorney.

The probability that Brewer’s DNA was mismatched is one in 550.5 quintillion, according to the APD.

“One quintillion is followed by 18 zeros,” police said.

Investigators are still looking for the individual the witness claimed to have seen in the passenger seat when Wolfe was kidnapped, and the case is still pending.

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