DNA Match Leads To Life Sentence In 1987 Rape, Murder

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- A Texas man was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for the murder and rape of a young mother in South Los Angeles nearly 20 years ago.

Mitchell Ray Brown, 41, was convicted Aug. 30 of first degree-murder for the July 1987 rape and stabbing death of 18-year-old Sandra Marie Beverly.

The murder occurred just two doors away from her grandmother's home, where she was living with her 18-month-old son, Keenan K. Beverly, who is now 21.

The son "holds no malice in his heart to the defendant," Beverly's mother, Sandra K. Moore, told the court during the sentencing hearing. "I hold no malice, either," she added.

Brown was arrested for the murder in January 2005 in Houston, Texas, where he was living with family, after detectives with the Los Angeles Police Cold Case Unit used DNA technology to identify him.

Detectives Cliff Shepard and Jose Ramirez were able to match DNA from the crime to Brown, whose DNA was in a database following his conviction in 2001 for assaulting a peace officer.

Since Beverly's murder, Brown had had several run-ins with law enforcement, and was twice convicted of stabbing others. He was on parole at the time of his arrest, said Deputy District Attorney Rachel Greene.

DNA evidence from the scene was the key to unlocking a case that had grown cold after 17 years.

"Without the technology we have today, it would have been unsolved," said Shepard. "There was no physical evidence, no witnesses. Without Mr. Brown walking into the police station to say he'd murdered someone, it probably never would have been solved."

DNA taken from the scene at the time of her death and current technology allowed the prosecution not only to finger Brown but also to reconstruct the likely events of the night.

"It painted a picture of the sequence of events just before or during the event, where it started, where it went to," Greene said. "It was a very quick, brutal attack from the sidewalk to the back of the house where the assault occurred," she said.

Though she called present-day DNA technology a "treasure trove," she warned that insufficient manpower and resources were creating backlogs solving crimes and exonerating innocent people who have been convicted.

"There are people walking the streets whose DNA is sitting on boxes and shelves," she said. "We've got people walking on the streets who are living on stolen time."

Moore credited not just DNA but police, prosecutors and God for bringing her daughter's murderer to justice and giving her a measure of relief after so many years.

She never lost hope her daughter's killer would be caught, she said, but "after five years went by I knew the trail was cold and I lived in prayer."

She described her daughter as "vivacious," someone who "always had a laugh behind her" and "the only person who has loved me unconditionally."

When detectives called to say they had found her daughter's killer, Moore said she had her first good night's sleep in years.

"I believe God works through the prayer of men and he used these wonderful people," she said. "And don't discount the power of DNA."