Austin, TX
Brother of 1980 cold case victim speaks out after police identify suspect
Brother of cold case victim speaks out
Charles Wolfe, brother of 25-year-old murder victim Susan Wolfe, spoke to FOX 7 Austin after finding out that law enforcement have finally identified his sister’s alleged killer after more than 40 years. FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen spoke with Wolfe in this “Missing in Texas”.
AUSTIN, Texas – The brother of a woman murdered in 1980 is speaking out after law enforcement say they have identified her alleged killer.
Austin police say they have identified a murder suspect in a cold case from 1980.
On January 9, 1980, 25-year-old Susan Wolfe enrolled at the UT Austin School of Nursing. Her brother, Charles Wolfe, describes her as a great spirit.
“She was working at the state hospital at the time and really cared about people. That was kind of a crossover for her, to get her foot in the door at University of Texas,” he said.
Suspect identified in 1980 homicide in Austin
The Austin Police Department has identified a suspect in connection to the 1980 murder of 25-year-old Susan Leigh Wolfe.
Austin Police say that on that same day, around 10 p.m., she was kidnapped about a block from her home while walking to her friend’s house.
A witness saw a car, described as a 1970 Dodge Polara, stopping and the driver grabbing her in a bear hug, putting a coat over her head, and forcing her into the car. The witness said the passenger door also opened, but didn’t see what they did.
Susan’s body was found the next morning in an alley on East 17th Street near Poquito Street. Police say she had been strangled, sexually assaulted, and shot in the head.
Charles was a junior in high school at the time.
“I was in disbelief, denial, thinking that must be some kind of mistake. Things like that just don’t happen,” he said.
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APD had over 40 people of interest, interviewed at least six suspects, some as far away as New York State.
“It was really tough on our family. It was like an open wound that would fester,” Charles said. “After, I’d say a decade, our family had given up.”
Last year, police sent DNA for testing. They got the results in February, which eliminated the six known suspects. The results were then entered into CODIS, a DNA database of offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence, and missing persons.
In March, a possible match was found in Massachusetts: 78-year-old Deck Brewer, Jr. He’s incarcerated there on unrelated charges.
He told APD detectives he had been in Austin and San Antonio around the time of Susan’s death. He has been charged with her murder.
“I was shocked, I was dumbfounded. I was just ecstatic. It was, I tell you, one of the best days of my life,” Charles said. “It’s tempered with a little cautious optimism because we want to make sure that it’s justice delayed, but not denied. I want to make sure that we bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice ultimately.”
Susan was the big sister to two younger brothers. Their parents passed away without ever knowing who was responsible for Susan’s death.
“She’s still alive in the hearts and minds of anyone who ever knew her that was touched by her,” Charles said.
The case isn’t closed yet. Detectives still want to know who the passenger in the car was.
If you have any information, call the APD Cold Case Unit at 512-974-5250.
“We want to heighten the visibility of this case to let people out there know there’s still someone out there. There’s someone that probably knows this individual or has seen this car, knows the history of this case. I like to encourage them to come forward, to cooperate, to help bring these people to justice. Someone knows something,” Charles said.
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas is getting its first major new national stock exchange in decades, and finance experts say it could create new opportunities for Austin’s tech companies and startups looking to grow.
The Texas Stock Exchange is launching this week in Dallas, with live trading expected to begin as early as Friday. The exchange began operations Monday, and it says all publicly traded stocks should be available on the platform by the end of the month. Thousands of publicly traded stocks are expected to be available by then.
Ray Perryman, President and CEO of the Perryman Group, said the launch signals Texas’ growing influence in the financial sector.
“It really lets the world know that Texas is indeed a major player in this industry,” Perryman said.
Gov. Greg Abbott called the exchange another sign of Texas’ expanding economic reach, saying, “This is another step that expands the financial might of Texas in the United States, and cements our economic power on the global stage.”
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Perryman said the exchange could provide another path for companies to go public and could help attract more growing companies to Austin and the rest of the state. He said the added access to capital could have ripple effects across the economy.
“It increases opportunities for firms in the area to expand, have access to capital, to be more profitable. That means they hire more people. That means they pay more taxes. That means they buy more things in their supply chains,” Perryman said.
Texas ranks second in the U.S. for Fortune 500 headquarters, behind California and ahead of New York. With the Texas Stock Exchange set to launch, experts say Austin’s startup community could see even more growth.
Perryman said Austin-area tech firms could benefit from having an in-state exchange option.
“They’ll now have a vehicle here in Texas that will be more efficient and less expensive to register on than the traditional exchanges,” Perryman said.
Perryman said the exchange’s success will depend on how many companies choose to list on it, how much investment it attracts, and how many additional companies decide to move to Texas.
Elon Musk’s electric car manufacturing company Tesla recently leased a 682,000-square-foot speculative industrial building in the Austin Hills Commerce Center.
The industrial building, which sits at 11801 Decker Lake Road, is set to be completed by January 2027. The project is helmed by Sansone Group and Principal Asset Management, and Musk’s Tesla is set to occupy the second phase of the development, according to reporting from the Austin Business Journal. The total size of the Austin Hills Commerce Center will be 1.4 million square feet when complete. It’s currently unclear what Tesla will utilize the space for.
The development highlights the increased demand for massive industrial buildings in the Austin area. According to the outlet, there are at least a dozen speculative buildings that span upwards of 400,000 square feet in various stages of development, from finished to the early planning phases.
Throughout the Austin Metro and across Texas, large swaths of real estate are rapidly becoming Musk’s playground. The world’s richest man has 2.2 million square feet of space around Austin on lease, and more than 10 million square feet that he owns and built.
The Musk company portfolio includes a reported 112,000-square-foot sublease at the Seaholm Power Plant in downtown for xAI and the airport-adjacent Gigafactory, which spans over 10 million square feet. A $20 billion Terafab campus, that would feature 2 million square feet for research and development, is in the planning stages.
Bastrop County is home to several Musk-owned business’ buildings, most of which are placed along country road FM 1209. Musk is also building an Optimus humanoid robot production facility near the Gigafactory. Musk’s companies have spanned the Austin area’s entire suburban space, from as far north as Taylor to as far south as Kyle.
Areas outside of Central Texas within the Musk companies include Cameron County, which is the home of Musk’s Starbase that functions as a manufacturing hub as well as the headquarters of SpaceX. The Starbase facility also includes the company’s primary launch site, which was recently relieved of local legal pressure centering around the company’s ability to shut down public Boca Chica Beach for launches.
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AUSTIN, Texas — THC products in Texas will once again be up for discussion during a hearing from state lawmakers today. The hearing will look at the health and public safety impacts of THC. This is the first step in deciding on potential changes to hemp laws when state lawmakers return to the Capitol in January. Currently, the state’s hemp industry remains in legal limbo. Retailers can legally sell many hemp-derived products, but the rules surrounding smokeable hemp like Delta-8 THC remain tied up in court.
Should Texas pass stricter or looser laws on THC products? ANSWER BELOW and see the results LIVE on CBS Austin This Morning from 4:30 a.m. to 7 a.m.
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