Suspect, 78, charged with kidnapping and murder of nursing student in Texas

A 78-year-old man incarcerated nearly 2,000 miles away has been charged with the sexual assault and murder of a 25-year-old Texas nursing student in 1980, Austin police said in a news release Friday.

Thanks to DNA technology, Deck Brewer Jr., who is currently serving a prison sentence in Massachusetts for another crime, kidnapped and killed Susan Leigh Wolfe a block from her home around 10 p.m. on Jan. 9, 1980, as he was on his way to a friend's house, police said.

Wolfe had just enrolled in nursing school at the University of Texas at Austin that day and was just four days away from her 26th birthday when she was murdered.

A witness to the kidnapping testified that he saw a car pull up and the suspect grabbed Wolfe from the sidewalk in a “bear hug” and dragged her inside after throwing a coat over her head.

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The next morning, investigators found her dead in an alley. She had a gunshot wound and was dead. There was evidence of strangulation and sexual abuse. The witness also believed he saw another person in the car who could have been a second suspect.

During the first year, Austin Police Department investigators followed up on dozens of leads, at one point tracking as many as 40 suspects, and interviewed at least six suspects.

In April of last year, detectives from the department's Cold Case Unit turned over DNA evidence from the crime scene to the Texas Department of Law Enforcement's crime lab, and last February the results eliminated the six known suspects.

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Deck Brewer Jr. was charged with the murder of Susan Leigh Wolfe decades ago. (Austin Police Department)

The evidence was entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a national DNA database of convicted criminals, unsolved crime scene evidence and missing persons.

In March, Brewer was identified as a possible match. And last month, a DNA search warrant again identified Brewer as a match.

On the day of her murder, Wolfe had just enrolled in nursing school at the University of Texas at Austin. (Google Maps)

Brewer admitted to investigators that he was in Austin at the time of the murder, but he declined to say more without a lawyer.

According to APD, the probability that Brewer's DNA is a false match is 1 in 550.5 trillion.

“There are 18 zeros after a trillion,” police explained.

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The case is ongoing and investigators are trying to identify the person the witness said he saw in the passenger seat when Wolfe was abducted.