TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — Authorities requested prison phone records for a man who may be connected to a 1980 Austin cold case, according to a search warrant from Travis County.
Previously, authorities filed a search warrant to obtain DNA swabs of a man who could be connected with the death of Susan Leigh Wolfe. The man is currently in a Massachusetts prison, a Travis County search warrant affidavit said back in June.
On Jan. 9, 1980, around 10 p.m., the Austin Police Department received a call from a man who said he witnessed a kidnapping in the 200 block of Franklin Avenue in east Austin. He told police he saw a white woman walking eastbound on Franklin Avenue, according to the affidavit.
The next day, around 8:39 a.m., APD received a report of a body found in an alley in the 2000 block of 17th Street. The body was identified as Wolfe. Police said she lived in the 200 block of Franklin Avenue, which was the same block where the kidnapping was reported 10 hours earlier, according to the affidavit.
Then, in April 2023, the test results of the DNA came in via the Texas Department of Public Safety Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), according to the affidavit. That was when the possible match was connected with the man in the Massachusetts prison.
The man was arrested on Feb. 15, 1980, in another Texas county, and that was how officials were able to find records containing his fingerprints.
The phone records
Authorities asked for phone records made by the man from June 13 to his scheduled release date on Nov. 18, according to the most recent search warrant from Travis County.
On June 18, court records state the man “made several phone calls” after “APD executed the DNA search warrant.” The man “expressed sadness” saying “he might not ever get out of prison and is most likely being transferred to Texas prison.” Furthermore, the man also started getting his “finances in order.”
Court records stated authorities believed those recorded phone records and any calls made after could provide evidence that could “constitute evidence” to connect the man to the cold case.