Suspect identified in 44-year Austin, Texas, homicide cold case

A man currently locked up in Massachusetts has been identified as a suspect in a 44-year old cold case homicide in Austin, Texas, the Austin Police Department announced Friday.

Victim Susan Leigh Wolfe, 25 at the time, was walking to a friend’s house at around 10 p.m. local time on Jan. 9, 1980, when she was kidnapped.

Deck Brewer Jr., now 78, is accused by APD of being involved in her death. Mr. Brewer Jr. is currently in Massachusetts Department of Corrections custody on charges unrelated to the Wolfe case.

A witness, unnamed by authorities, said that a 1970 Dodge Polara stopped and that the driver got out, putting Wolfe in a bear hug and a coat over her head before forcing her into the car, APD explained. The witness also saw the passenger door of the car open, but did not see what the passenger did during Wolfe’s abduction.

Her body was found the next morning with a fatal gunshot wound to the head, signs of ligature strangulation and evidence of sexual assault left by one of the two suspects. That evidence was used over the years to try and find the suspect in question, but in February 2024 new technology ruled out the six suspects APD investigators had on file.

Cross-checking the evidence against a national database pulled up a match in Massachusetts, Mr. Brewer Jr. APD detectives interviewed Mr. Brewer Jr. in Massachusetts and he told them he was in the Austin and San Antonio areas at the time of Wolfe’s death.

Mr. Brewer Jr. is incarcerated at the Massachusetts Treatment Center, a “a medium security facility separately housing criminally sentenced male inmates identified as sex offenders and those who have been civilly committed as sexually dangerous persons,” per the Massachusetts government’s website and state DOC records.

Neither APD nor Massachusetts records say what crime he is currently serving time for, or for how long his sentence is Massachusetts is supposed to last.

APD is continuing to investigate the case to try and identify the passenger present at Wolfe’s abduction.