Utilizing advances in genetic profiling, the Alaska State Troopers have made an arrest in a 26-year-old Fairbanks cold case murder that occurred at the Bartlett Hall on the UAF campus on April 26th, 1993, AST announced at Anchorage’s Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory.

Investigators say that for over 20 years info trickled in the murder case of Sophie Sergie, who was found dead, brutally stabbed multiple times and shot in the back of the head, by a custodian on April 26th of that year.

Sergie, a Pitka Point resident and former student at UAF, had been visiting friends at the dorm as she awaited a dental appointment in Fairbanks.

The investigation found that Sergie had been sexually assaulted prior to her death. She was partially clad when found stuffed into a bathtub on the second floor of the Hall.

Investigators took a fresh look at the case in early 2018 and DNA profiles taken in 1993 were sent to Virginia-based Parabon Nanolabs, a genetic genealogy testing lab. 

With those genealogy results, investigators were able to zero in on 44-year-old Steven Downs through a family match. He was then tracked to a location near the Auburn Fireside Inn in the state of Maine. 

Downs, who was an 18-year-old UAF student and staying in Bartlett Hall at the time of Sergie’s death was questioned in the days prior to his arrest and he said he remembered seeing pictures but denied knowing Sergie. He told investigators that he had been with his girlfriend for most of the evening that Sergie was murdered. He told investigators multiple times through the interview that he “suspected soldiers from Ft. Wainwright were responsible for Sergie’s murder because they were often in the building.”

Nicholas Dazer, a security guard who helped secure the crime scene after the discovery of the victim, told investigators that he was Down’s roommate and was aware that Downs had a 22 caliber pistol in his room in 1993.

AST investigators traveled to Auburn on Monday and Downs was arrested with the assistance of the Maine State Police on Friday. He was charged with Sexual Assault I and Murder I.

AST says that Downs remains in custody in Maine and will be extradited back to Alaska.

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