44-Year Cold Case Solved Texas Nursing Student’s Kidnapping and Murder Finally Unveiled by Police
A 78-year-old man has been charged with murder that happened more than 40 years ago after genetic history helped police figure out that he was a possible suspect.
The Austin, Texas, Police Department says Deck Brewer Jr., who is already in jail in Massachusetts, has been charged with killing Susan Leigh Wolfe in 1980. Wolfe was 25 years old.
Wolfe had just started training to be a nurse at the University of Texas at Austin when, on January 9, 1980, she was raped, killed, and her body was found.
Wolfe was taken one block from her house around 10 p.m. as she walked to a friend’s house. Police say a witness saw a car stop, and the driver got out. They then grabbed Wolfe in a “bear hug,” put a coat over her head and forced her into the back of the car.
The next morning, Wolfe’s body was found in an Austin ditch. Police said she died from a gunshot wound to the head and there were signs of ligature suffocation on her body.
Police say that during the autopsy, a pathologist found proof of a sexual assault by one of the two unknown suspects seen in the car.
For a year after the murder, police followed a lot of leads and found a lot of cars that matched what the witness said. Over the years, police said they had more than 40 people they were interested in and had talked to at least six suspects.
Detectives sent evidence about Wolfe’s sexual attack to the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory in April 2023. Forensic experts looked it over and said it was good enough to test, according to the police.
In February, Austin police got the test results, which showed that the suspect fit the description of a man. They then ruled out six other suspects who did not match the DNA evidence they had, according to police.
The profile was then put into CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System. CODIS runs local, state, and national databases of DNA profiles from people who have been guilty of crimes, crime scene evidence that hasn’t been solved, and people who have gone missing, according to police.
In March, Austin police got a tip about a possible match in Massachusetts. Brewer is currently in jail there on charges that are not connected to the case, police said.
Police say that Brewer told detectives that he had been in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, around the time of the murder for a short time. He asked for his right to a lawyer when he heard that DNA had been found at the murder scene.
Police said that after the DNA test, an Austin court found strong evidence that Brewer killed Wolfe and could be charged with murder.