When 25-year-old Susan Leigh Wolfe enrolled in nursing school, all she wanted to be was a nurse and provide medical care for her patients. However, on a January evening in 1980, her family’s hope was dashed when her body was found.
Recently, authorities using DNA advance technology identified Deck Brewer Jr., 78, and charged him with her murder.
“The probability of selecting an unrelated person at random who could be the contributor of the partial major component in this DNA profile is approximately 1 in 550.5 quintillion. One quintillion is followed by 18 zeros,” stated the report analysis after a DNA sample was obtained from Brewer, according to NBC.
Witnesses told the Austin Police Department that Wolfe had been walking to a friend’s house around 10 o’clock at night when she was accosted by a driver of a 1970 Dodge Polara. Soon, the suspect placed the victim in a bear hug, placing a coat over her head before forcing her into the vehicle. Witnesses also claimed there was a passenger in the vehicle. The next day, investigators found her body. Autopsy reports showed the victim had been sexually assaulted, strangled, and shot to death.
Investigators followed up with several leads, which generated over forty persons of interest and led to the interview of six suspects. However, the investigation hit a brick wall, and the case went cold over the years.
Forty-three years later, the APD cold case unit revisited the case and resubmitted DNA evidence from the crime scene into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) of convicted offenders. Brewer’s DNA was a match!
During an interview with the defendant, who was already in custody of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections on unrelated charges, he told investigators he had been in Austin, Texas, at the time of the murder.
“It’s possible investigators didn’t have enough of the DNA sample originally; until recently, with improvements in DNA technology, a considerable amount of DNA was required to be uploaded to the system to be compared,” said Michael Arntfield of Western University in Ontario, Canada, reported CNN.
Authorities are still trying to identify the passenger of the vehicle and asking anyone with information related to the case to reach out to its cold case unit at 512-974-5250.
Wolfe’s parents and college roommate have since passed away.
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