She Was Killed Walking Home. 45 Years Later, a Confession

A homicide that went unsolved for nearly half a century may finally be closed. Police say new forensic genealogy techniques led them to arrest 62-year-old Kelly Lee Brower in Arizona in the 1981 killing of 23-year-old Yolanda Herrera near San Antonio, Texas. Herrera's beaten, nude body was found by schoolchildren two days after she left a bar in Schertz to walk home to Universal City, officials said Tuesday. She had been sexually assaulted and died of multiple blunt force injuries, per People.

DNA gathered during her autopsy sat without a match for decades until advances in testing allowed labs to build a profile and zero in on the Brower surname. Investigators then tailed Brower in Cottonwood, Ariz., collected his DNA, and say it matched the crime scene evidence. Cpl. Caitlin Brown describes a crime of opportunity. "She happened to be there walking home. He happened to be in a bar, saw her," she says, per WOAI. Brower, who previously lived in Universal City, faces a capital murder charge as he awaits extradition to Texas. Police say he has confessed.