Susan Leigh Wolfe, a 25-year-old nursing student at the University of Texas, was sexually assaulted and murdered on the evening of January 9, 1980, on her way to a friend's house.
A witness who spoke to police said he saw a car and the driver got out and forced Wolfe into the car. The next morning Wolfe's body was found in an alley.
Crime scene investigators found signs of strangulation on her neck and the cause of death was determined to be a bullet to the head.
SIX MAIN SUSPECTS IDENTIFIED
Over the next year, police pursued dozens of potential suspects matching the witness's description. They eventually settled on six suspects, but no charges were brought against any of them.
Then, in 2023, detectives submitted evidence from Wolfe's sexual assault examination to the Texas Public Crime Laboratory. There, forensic experts used DNA to create a profile of the suspect.
Police received the results in February and found that none of the six main suspects matched the DNA profile.
DNA MATCHES 78-YEAR-OLD MAN
Their DNA profiles were then entered into the Unified DNA Index System, which collects local, state and national DNA profiles of convicted criminals, unsolved crime scene evidence and missing persons. In March, a match was made to a man named Deck Brewer Jr.
Brewer, 78, had previously been in prison in Massachusetts on unrelated charges.
After speaking with Brewer, investigators learned that he had been in Austin and San Antonio, Texas at the time of Wolfe's murder.
When police were told that DNA was found at the scene of the woman's murder, Brewer reportedly asked for his lawyer. Brewer was charged with murder.
