The killer of University of Texas at Austin nursing student Susan Leigh Wolfe is finally behind bars after over 40 years.
Deck Brewer Jr., 79, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received eight years in prison for the 1980 killing of Wolfe. The sentencing came on Nov. 12, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
An additional capital murder charge against Brewer was waived, and an unrelated sentence served in Massachusetts will count toward his eight years.
Wolfe was 25 at the time of her death, which followed her abduction on Jan. 9, 1980. A witness claimed two men in trench coats grabbed Wolfe as she walked to her friend’s house on 49th Street. She was strangled, shot and sexually assaulted, and her body was recovered in an East 17th Street alley.
Movement on Wolfe’s cold case began in 2023 when evidence underwent advanced testing at a Texas Department of Public Safety crime laboratory. It wasn’t until 2024 that a Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database hit appeared, and police arrested and indicted Brewer later that year.