Suspect in 45-year-old Ariz. murder identified through DNA on discarded Coors can
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Trey Baylor, Courtroom Insider
SAN ANTONIO (Courtroom Insider) — A Texas man has been arrested after police say they found DNA evidence linking him to a decades-old murder in Arizona.
Kelly Lee Brower, 68, was charged Aug. 19 with capital murder in the 1981 killing of 23-year-old Yolanda Herrera. Police say they were able to link Brower to the crime through DNA evidence taken from a beer can.
In April 1981, Herrera’s nude body was found in a field by a group of children in Universal City, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio, according to KOLD, the CBS News affiliate in Tucson, Arizona. Police say Herrera had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death.
An investigation revealed that Herrera was last seen walking home a few days before, KOLD reports, but all leads soon turned to dead ends, and the case went cold for over 40 years.
KBTX, the CBS affiliate in Bryan, Texas, reports that in 2020, Herrera’s case was marked eligible for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. It was reopened, and law enforcement officers collected evidence from the original autopsy to be examined for DNA evidence.
Over the next five years, the DNA was examined by two separate labs. The first lab was unable to reach a conclusion according to KORD, but in 2025, Othram Laboratories used Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy to identify a possible suspect.
According to People, Othram Laboratories identified Brower as a suspect after his DNA was matched to that of several others in a family genealogy database.
Texas law enforcement reached out to law enforcement in Cottonwood, Arizona, where Browers then lived. Cottonwood police put Brower under surveillance until they could obtain a sample of his DNA — taken from a discarded Coors can — to submit for testing. The samples collected during the surveillance operation matched those from Herrera’s autopsy, police said.
Brower was interviewed by Cottonwood police on Aug. 13 and denied having any knowledge of Herrera or her murder, San Antonio CBS affiliate KENS reports. In a second interview, however, Brower allegedly confessed, saying, “I’m sorry for what I did.”
Brower was subsequently arrested Aug. 19 and was later extradited to Texas.
“This is a testament to the commitment that is involved that after 45 years, we have made an arrest in the murder of Yolanda Herrera,” Universal City Police Lt. Stephen Rios told KENS.
Brower is scheduled to be in court for a pre-indictment setting hearing on Dec. 12.