A 79-year-old Texas man has been arrested in connection with a murder that remained unsolved for more than four decades after investigators used DNA collected from items discarded in his trash to identify him as a suspect.
Beverly Bruneau, a Braniff Airlines flight attendant, was found strangled in her Grapevine apartment on February 13, 1981. Although blood recovered from her clothing was preserved as evidence, the sample was not tested until 2010, when it failed to match anyone in law enforcement databases.
The investigation was revived in 2026 after detectives collected Larry Dean Brown’s discarded trash, including soda bottles and a barbecue sauce container, and used modern DNA analysis to compare the samples with the blood found at the crime scene. Authorities say the DNA matched, leading to Brown’s arrest on a murder charge.
Brown had been questioned during the original investigation because his wife, Thelma, was Bruneau’s close friend and coworker. Investigators also noted that Brown had a fresh injury on his thumb at the time, but there was not enough evidence to charge him.
According to investigators, the case may have stemmed from a dispute over a jointly owned house. Authorities allege Brown had threatened Bruneau, may have been involved in a fire that damaged the property, and pressured her to sign inflated insurance documents. Family members said Bruneau refused and had become fearful of him before her death.