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A judge was set to hear motions in a case against an Auburn man accused of a brutal 1993 slaying of an Alaska woman this week but that has been delayed due to the new coronavirus.
The Lewiston Sun Journal reports that Steven H. Downs’ defense attorneys, James Howaniec and Jesse James Ian Archer, both of Lewiston, have filed motions seeking to dismiss charges against Downs and suppress evidence against their client.
Prosecutors allege that Downs raped and killed Sophie Sergie, 20, in April 1993 at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, where prosecutors say Downs attended school from 1993 to 1996.
Sergie, an aspiring marine biologist, was a student at the university but left to save money. Sergie was visiting a friend at the university in April 1993 when her body was found in a dormitory bathtub. She had been shot with a .22-caliber gun, stabbed, beaten, gagged and shocked with a stun gun, according to the Sun Journal.
The defense argues that prosecutors have provided “no motive” for killing and called claims that Downs owned a .22-caliber handgun during his first year at the Fairbanks university “completely false,” the newspaper reports. They are seeking to exclude evidence of Downs’ possession of weapons.
Downs, 45, has “categorically” denied any involvement in Sergie’s killing. He has been extradited to Alaska.
DNA evidence was recovered from the crime scene in 1993, but DNA processing technology wouldn’t be introduced in Alaska until seven years later.
Police did not reportedly match the DNA to Downs until last year, after a forensic genealogist discovered similarities to Downs’ aunt’s, which had been collected in a public database used to research family heritage. He was arrested in Auburn on Feb. 1, 2019.
Another motion from the defense seeks to suppress that DNA evidence, the Sun Journal reports.
Howaniec told the Sun Journal that hearings on the motion will likely be delayed until at least June. Downs’ trial was tentatively scheduled for September, but now Howaniec expects it could be postponed until 2021.
Downs, a registered nurse, was issued a warning for unprofessional behavior from the Maine nursing board after the Livermore Falls care facility where he had been working fired him, according to public records.
In a consent agreement with Downs signed in March 2017, the Maine State Board of Nursing notes that the Harris House in Livermore Falls dismissed him the previous year for “a totality of substandard performance,” including unspecific comments that made female co-workers “uncomfortable.”