Suspect charged in kidnapping of University of Texas nursing student

A 78-year-old man has been charged with the murder of a University of Texas at Austin nursing student who was found shot to death in an alley 40 years ago, a day after she enrolled at the school, Austin police announced Friday.

Deck Brewer Jr., 78, who is already serving a prison sentence in Massachusetts for another crime, is now accused of killing 25-year-old Susan Leigh Wolfe after modern forensics matched his DNA with that of found on the victim, authorities said.

Wolfe was abducted a block from her home around 10 p.m. on Jan. 9, 1980, as she was on her way to visit a friend, police said. That same day, she had enrolled in nursing school at the University of Texas Austin.

A witness to the kidnapping told investigators they saw a person get out of a 1970 Dodge Polara and pull a coat over Wolfe's head before forcing them into the car, police said. Wolfe's body was found the next morning in Austin.

The medical examiner found evidence that Wolfe had been strangled but concluded she died from a gunshot wound to the head, police said. A pathologist also found evidence that the victim had been sexually assaulted by one of the suspects.

During the investigation, detectives encountered 40 suspects and questioned at least six suspects, some of whom lived across the country.

Wolfe's case remained unsolved until last year, when investigators turned over evidence related to her sexual assault to the state crime lab. Austin police received notification from the lab in March that DNA they provided was a possible match to Brewer's.

Brewer told investigators in July that he was in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, around the time of Wolfe's murder, police said.

It is unclear what crime Brewer is serving his sentence for in Massachusetts, but a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections told HuffPost in an email that he is incarcerated at the Massachusetts Treatment Center, a separate facility that houses male inmates who have been classified as sex offenders.

Austin police said they are continuing to investigate the Wolfe case and are following leads to identify another suspect: the passenger in the car at the time of the kidnapping.