Who is Larry Dean Brown? DNA led to arrest of Texas cold case murder suspect
A 79-year-old Colorado man has been charged with murder in the 1981 strangulation death of a Braniff Airlines flight attendant in Grapevine. Larry Dean Brown was extradited to Tarrant County this week, more than 45 years after Beverly Bruneau was found dead in her apartment.
FULL STORY: 79-year-old murder suspect charged with 1981 strangulation of North Texas woman
Here are key takeaways:
- Brown, a former Navy pilot who flew more than 100 combat missions in Vietnam, had been laid off from his job as a Braniff Airlines pilot and flight engineer at the time of the killing. His wife was Bruneau’s best friend, and the two women worked together as flight attendants.
- Bruneau, 35, was found dead on Feb. 13, 1981, with an electrical cord around her neck. Detectives noted at the time that Brown had a fresh wound on his right thumb and gave an explanation for the injury that investigators found didn’t add up.
- Investigators say financial tensions preceded the killing. Brown’s wife and Bruneau co-owned a Dallas home damaged by arson in November 1980, and Bruneau had told her mother she was afraid of Brown after a heated argument over insurance documents three days before her death.
- The case broke open when a Grapevine detective obtained a covert DNA sample from soda bottles in Brown’s trash in Colorado. Testing found Brown could not be excluded as the source of male DNA on Bruneau’s blood-stained nightgown, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
- Brown later became an attorney in Colorado but was disbarred in 2020 after a court found he made misrepresentations to a client and a bankruptcy court, according to court records.
- His defense attorney sought to reduce his $2 million bond, citing a recent debilitating disease diagnosis. According to court records, bond was set at $100,000 on July 17, with conditions including a GPS monitor and house arrest with travel allowed to doctors’ appointments.
The summary points above were compiled with the help of AI tools and edited by journalists. The full story in the link at top was reported, written and edited entirely by journalists.