Steven Downs: Man sentenced to 75 years for brutal 1993 rape and murder of Sophie Sergie
MAINE, ALASKA: A man was convicted for the rape and murder of a girl staying in his dorm building that went unsolved for almost three decades. Steven Downs, of Auburn, Maine, was sentenced to 75 years in prison for the 1993 sexual assault and killing of 20-year-old Alaskan native, Sophie Sergie. She was brutalized and dumped into a dormitory bathroom. A key piece of DNA evidence connected Downs to the crime and he was convicted by an Alaska Jury in February 2022.
The mysterious case began when Sergie was in town for her dental work and she decided to stay with a friend at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). She was last seen when she left to smoke a cigarette and her friend suggested she smoke near exhaust vents in the women's shower room to avoid the cold outside, the court papers said. Tragically, Sergie's body was found in a bathtub in the shower room of Bartlett Hall on the afternoon of April 26, 1993.
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Sergie was sexually assaulted as semen was found in her body and was shot in the head in an "execution style" and stabbed multiple times, officials said. Downs was a UAF freshman in 1993 and lived in the dorm where Sergie was found dead. Downs, 48, got scot-free initially despite being interviewed by investigators after the murder and the case also went cold. In 2019, Downs was arrested in Maine when investigators used genetic genealogy tracing on male DNA recovered with a rape kit. Genealogist CeCe Moore of Parabon Nanolad was able to connect the crime scene DNA to the profile of Downs' aunt who lived in Vermont, The Sun reports.
"He was the only one whose DNA was found anywhere near the scene," said Chief Assistant Attorney General Jenna Gruenstein in court according to WMTW. "The DNA matched to him. It was his." Alaska State Police took 26 years to make the connection.
The defense argued in Downs' favor that no motive was identified and no witnesses were ever brought to the stand. "They have no state of mind other than a happy young 18-year-old boy hanging out with his friends," defense attorney Jim Howaniec claimed. However, prosecutors said that Downs took Sergie's life so to hide his sexual assault. "He killed her to cover it up so that he could get away with it, just like he's done for 29 years until today," said Gruenstein. Downs was ultimately found guilty following two days of deliberation.
Alaska Superior Court Judge Thomas Temple sentenced Downs to 67 years for the murder alongside an additional eight years for sexual assault on Monday, September 26. He exceeds 400 pounds and has high blood pressure, his attorney said and the defense contended any sentence greater than 20 years would be a life sentence because of Downs' health. He will be eligible for discretionary parole after 25 years.