Sophie Sergie
University of Alaska student Sophie Sergie was found murdered in a campus dormitory bathtub. DNA genealogy identified Steven Downs in 2019, 26 years after the crime.
On April 26, 1993, twenty-year-old Sophie Sergie, a Yup'ik woman visiting friends at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, was found dead in a bathtub in Bartlett Hall dormitory. She had been sexually assaulted and shot in the head.
The case went cold for over two decades. In 2019, investigators used genetic genealogy to identify Steven Downs, a former UAF student who was living in Auburn, Maine. DNA evidence from the crime scene matched Downs.
Downs was extradited to Alaska and charged with murder and sexual assault. He was convicted in 2020 and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
The case was notable as one of the first in Alaska to be solved using genetic genealogy technology. Sophie's family, from the village of Pitkas Point, had waited 26 years for justice.
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