The widow of a suspect in a decades-old homicide defended her husband saying the man she knew did not commit the crime.
Rebecca Brown’s husband, Kevin Charles Brown, was identified Thursday as one of two men involved in the brutal killing of a San Diego teenager.
The body of Claire Hough, 14, was found on the sand of Torrey Pines Beach in the summer of 1984. She had been beaten, strangled and stabbed. One of her breasts had been severed.
San Diego Police say DNA from the scene matched that of Brown and Ronald Clyde Tatro, who died in a boating accident in 2011.
Brown, a former employee of the San Diego Police Department was not arrested and charged with the crime.
They say as they were preparing an arrest warrant, Brown was found dead from an apparent suicide. His body was found Tuesday, Oct. 21 in Cuyamaca State Park on Highway 79.
“They just pushed him because he was a quiet gentle nervous person. They just pushed him over the edge,” Rebecca Brown said.
In an interview with NBC 7, Rebecca defended her husband, the man she has known for decades.
“I'm sorry that crime happened 30 years ago. That poor girl . It was horrible. But it had nothing to do with my husband,” Rebecca said grasping my hand firmly as we discussed her husband and Hough's murder.
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A year ago police removed many things from their home as evidence, she said.
“They took whatever they wanted, van loads of stuff a year ago and never returned anything,“ she said.
At the time of Hough's murder Brown was a criminalist working in the San Diego Police Crime lab. He retired in April of 2002.
While he worked many cases over the span of his career investigators say Brown did not process evidence from the Hough murder.
Six years earlier, Within a couple hundred yards of where Hough was found , police discovered the body of 15 year old Barbara Nantais, She was naked, had been beaten and strangled. Like Hough, her breast had also been disfigured.
Her 17-year-old boyfriend James Alt was beaten unconscious by the attacker but survived. NBC7 spoke to Alt over the phone Thursday.
“Those names don't ring a bell if you would ask me. No, I haven't heard them before this,” Alt said.
Alt says he is convinced the two deaths were done by the same attacker.
“Someone had to know something when they killed Claire Hough. They had to know how Barbara was murdered as well. There are just too many similarities there,” Alt said.
Even though San Diego Police have told Alt and the media a number of times over the years that the two crimes are connected, Thursday’s announcement did not mention the Nantais case.
After some prying the lead investigator on the Hough case tells NBC7 they have no evidence connecting these murders but would not elaborate.
