Overview
- Police announced the closure of the November 1998 killing of 43-year-old Linda Marie Rutledge, who was found after a fire at the Nixon Hearing Aid Center in Lexington.
- A July 2025 NIBIN hit matched a .380 shell casing from the Lexington scene to one from Austin in 1991, and Kentucky State Police reported the casings were fired from the same gun.
- In September 2025, DNA Labs International tested Rutledge’s sexual-assault kit and found a DNA profile that matched evidence from the Austin case.
- Investigators identified the suspect as Robert Eugene Brashers, whom Austin investigators named in 2025 as responsible for the yogurt shop murders; he died in January 1999.
- Lexington police credited Austin authorities, state and federal forensic partners, and advances in ballistics, DNA testing, and investigative genetic genealogy, and the family requested privacy.