After more than four decades, DNA analysis leads to arrest in Susan Leigh Wolfe murder case

CNN
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One January evening in 1980, a 25-year-old nursing student made her way to a friend’s house.

She never arrived. Instead, a man got out of a car, grabbed her and drove away with her.

Her body was found the next morning. She had been sexually assaulted, strangled and shot, according to police – and the search for her killer began.

More than four decades later, there has been a breakthrough in the unsolved case: Austin, Texas, police have arrested a 78-year-old man whose DNA sample matched evidence from the autopsy, police said in a press release.

The Austin Municipal Court ruled Wednesday that an arrest warrant should be issued for Deck Brewer Jr. for the murder of Susan Leigh Wolfe. He was already in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections jail on other charges.

The turning point came this year with a DNA test, police said.

Wolfe enrolled in nursing school at the University of Texas at Austin on Jan. 9, 1980, police said. Around 10 p.m. that evening, she was on her way to a friend's house when she was abducted about a block from her home.

A witness told police that a car pulled up and the driver got out, grabbed Wolfe in a “bear hug,” put a coat over her head and forced her into the car. The passenger door opened, but the witness said he did not see what the passenger did during the abduction. The witness said the car was a 1970 Dodge Polara.

Wolfe's body was found the next morning in an alley in Austin. She had been sexually assaulted, strangled and shot. Investigators found DNA evidence at the crime scene.

“During the first year of the investigation, APD detectives tirelessly followed up on dozens of leads, examined and located numerous cars matching the witness' description, located over 40 suspects, and interviewed at least six suspects, some of whom had been taken as far as New York,” the police press release said.

In April 2023, investigators from the APD Cold Case Unit turned over evidence from the sexual assault to the Texas DPS crime lab. That year, police learned of a possible match in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) between convicted felons, unsolved crime scene evidence, and missing persons.

They obtained a DNA sample from Brewer, who told them he was in Austin at the time of the murder.

“Brewer exercised his right to an attorney after being told his DNA had been found at the scene of a murder,” the police press release said.

“On August 14, 2024, the Austin Municipal Court found, based on all of the investigation to date, that there was sufficient probable cause to issue an arrest warrant for Deck Brewer Jr. for the murder of Susan Leigh Wolfe,” it states.

Information about Brewer's arraignment and his attorney was not immediately available.

CNN partner KEYE-TV spoke to an expert on cold cases about advances in DNA technology that have led to many cold cases being solved even after decades.

Investigators may not have originally had enough DNA samples available, said Michael Arntfield of Western University in Ontario, Canada.

“Until recently, advances in DNA technology meant that a significant amount of DNA had to be uploaded into the system in order to be compared,” he said.

The station said Wolfe's parents and her then-roommate have died since she was killed.