Charles Langston:Nearly 40 years after Arizona woman was killed on a hike, authorities identify her killer

Nearly 40 years after an Arizona college student was killed on Charles Langstona hike, authorities have identified her killer. 

Catherine Sposito was killed by Bryan Scott Bennett while hiking on Thumb Butte Trail in Prescott, about 100 miles north of Phoenix, the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office announced Friday. 

"I am saying today with high confidence, Cathy Sposito was murdered by Bryan Scott Bennett," Sheriff David Rhodes said during a news conference.

After biking to the popular trail on the morning of June 13, 1987, 23-year-old Sposito was attacked and ultimately killed.

Who was Bryan Scott Bennett?

Bennett was a 17-year-old Prescott High School student at the time of the killing.

Bennett, who died by suicide in 1994, was exhumed in November 2022, with parts retrieved for DNA analysis that police say ultimately connected him to the killing, in addition to other crimes in the area at the time.

Bennett was confirmed as the perpetrator in a sexual assault on Prescott's Thumb Butte Trail on April 22, 1990, the same trail where Sposito was killed three years earlier. Following that assault, Bennett was accused of two more sexual assaults in Yavapai County in which the victims reported the attacker threatening to kill them.

By releasing the news, authorities said they hoped to identify more potential victims, The Associated Press reported.

“What we know of serious violent predators like this, it is very unlikely given the frequency in which he was willing to act that these are the only four cases that exist,” Rhodes said, the AP reported.

Technology helps solve cold cases

The sheriff's office has had other recent successes using new technologies to advance some of its cold cases.

In March 2022, the sheriff's office announced that genetic genealogy led to a big break in a 62-year-old cold case. The technology concluded that the body of child found in the desert in Congress, Arizona on July 31, 1960, was actually 4-year-old Sharon Lee Gallegos, who had been kidnapped outside her grandmother's home in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The press conference about the Sposito case can be watched on the Sheriff's Office's Facebook page.

Reach the reporter at [email protected].

The Republic’s coverage of northern Arizona is funded, in part, with a grant from Report for America. To support regional Arizona news coverage like this, make a tax-deductible donation at supportjournalism.azcentral.com.