A 78-year-old man jailed nearly 2,000 miles away has been charged with the 1980 sexual assault and murder of a 25-year-old Texas nursing student, Austin police said in a news release Friday.
Using DNA technology, police say Deck Brewer Jr., currently serving time in Massachusetts for an unrelated crime, allegedly kidnapped and killed Susan Leigh Wolfe about a block from her home around 10 p.m. on Jan. 9, 1980, as she walked to a friend's house.
Wolfe had just enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing that day and was just four days shy of her 26th birthday when she was killed.
A witness to the kidnapping said he saw a car pull up and the suspect grab Wolfe off the sidewalk in a “bear hug” and force her inside after throwing a coat over her head.
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Susan Leigh Wolfe, 25, was abducted a block from her home around 10 p.m. on January 9, 1980, while she was walking to a friend's house. (Austin Police Department)
Investigators found her dead from a gunshot wound in an alley the next morning, with evidence of strangulation and sexual assault. The witness also thought he saw another person in the car, who could have been a second suspect.
During the first year, Austin Police Department investigators followed dozens of leads and at one point had as many as 40 people of interest and interviewed at least six suspects.
In April of last year, detectives with the department's Cold Case Unit submitted DNA evidence from the crime scene to the Texas DPS Crime Lab and in February the results eliminated all six known suspects.
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Deck Brewer Jr. has been charged with the decades-old murder of Susan Leigh Wolfe. (Austin Police Department)
The evidence was entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a national DNA database of convicted criminals, evidence from unsolved crime scenes and missing persons.
In March, Brewer was identified as a possible match. Then last month, after a DNA search warrant was conducted, Brewer was again identified as a match.
Wolfe had just enrolled in nursing school at the University of Texas at Austin on the day she was killed. (Google Maps)
Brewer admitted to investigators that he had been in Austin at the time of the murder, but would not say anything else without an attorney.
The APD said the probability of Brewer's DNA being an incorrect match is one in 550.5 quintillion.
“A quintillion is followed by 18 zeros,” police explained.
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The case is still active and investigators want to identify the person the witness said he saw in the passenger seat when Wolfe was abducted.
