Colorado Man, 79, Indicted in 1981 Flight Attendant Murder After DNA Trash Match

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jul 17

Larry Dean Brown, 79, was arrested June 8 in Colorado, indicted June 29 in Tarrant County and extradited to North Texas over the 1981 strangling death of Braniff flight attendant Beverly "Casey" Bruneau.
A 2026 covert DNA collection from two discarded soda bottles outside Brown’s Colorado home produced a profile that could not exclude him as the source of male blood found on Bruneau’s nightgown.
The case had stalled for decades after Bruneau was found dead in her Grapevine apartment with an electrical cord around her neck; preserved evidence tested in 2010 yielded an unidentified male DNA profile but no CODIS hit.
Brown had drawn scrutiny on the day of the killing because his wife was Bruneau’s best friend and former roommate, and investigators also examined a dispute over allegedly inflated insurance repair claims tied to a fire-damaged Dallas house.
Grapevine police said confirmatory DNA analysis and other forensic testing are still pending as prosecutors pursue the murder charge.