Woman was killed on solo hike 36 years ago, AZ cops say. DNA just identified suspect
A 23-year-old woman was hiking alone in Arizona when she was attacked and killed 36 years ago, deputies said.
DNA testing just identified the suspect as now-deceased Bryan Scott Bennett in the killing of Cathy Sposito, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office said in an Aug. 25 news conference.
Sposito was hiking Thumb Butte Trail in Prescott on June 13, 1987, when she was hit with a rock and a ratchet wrench, stabbed and shot, Sheriff David Rhodes said during the conference.
People heard Sposito screaming, but when they got to her, she was dead and the suspect had run off into the woods, Rhodes said.
Evidence was collected at the scene, but the case went cold for 36 years.
“How could such an incredibly awful and atrocious thing happen in such a wonderful place?” he recounted people saying after the brutal killing.
Investigators look into case decades later
An investigator and cold case volunteers began looking into Sposito’s case again in 2015, according to Lt. Dan Pritchard.
DNA samples were taken from the wrench used in the killing of Sposito and the top DNA “contributors” were Sposito and Bennett, authorities said.
“It was 28 times more likely that Bryan Bennett and Cathy Sposito contributed to the DNA presence on that ratchet wrench than anyone else statistically in the world,” one of the cold case volunteers said during the news conference.
They also looked into other crimes that happened at trails, parks or forests and identified a similar case.
Another woman had been attacked and sexually assaulted at Thumb Butte in 1990. The assault happened around the same time of day and at the same location as Sposito’s attack, Rhodes said.
Bennett’s remains were exhumed and sent to a lab to develop a DNA profile, deputies said. In March, officials confirmed his DNA was a match to both cases.
Bennett is also accused of trying to sexually assault a woman at a house party in 1990 in Chino Valley, deputies said. Then on June 2, 1993, he approached a woman at a post office in Prescott and held her at knifepoint before sexually assaulting her multiple times, Rhodes said.
He was detained after both crimes, but because of a lack of evidence, he was never convicted. On Jan. 27, 1994, he died by suicide after leaving the state for Kentucky.
He was a junior in high school when he was accused in the killing of Sposito.
Prescott is about 100 miles north of Phoenix.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or 800 273-8255 or text the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
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