University Murder Solved After Nearly 30 Years

As always, thank you for hanging out and remembering Sophie Sergie with me today. Sophie Sergie was a 20‑year‑old Alaska Native student from the village of Pitkas Point who was found murdered in a residence hall bathroom at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in April 1993. She had been visiting a friend on campus when she disappeared; hours later, a janitor discovered her body in a bathtub. She had been sexually assaulted and killed by a combination of stabbing and gunshot.For years the case went cold, despite investigators collecting DNA at the scene and interviewing numerous students, including a young Army electrician named Steven H. Downs who lived on the same floor. It was not until advances in forensic genealogy and a re‑examination of the DNA profile in the 2010s that investigators were able to link the crime‑scene DNA to Downs, who by then was living in Maine. He was arrested in 2019, extradited to Alaska, and tried for Sergie’s rape and murder. In 2022, Downs was convicted and later sentenced to 67 years in prison, nearly three decades after Sophie Sergie’s death.