2018/10/09
US News October 5, 2018: Police: DNA Links 3 Deaths to Killer Who Died in 1999
ST. LOUIS (AP) — An Arkansas man who killed himself during a 1999 police standoff at a Missouri motel was a killer and rapist who strangled a South Carolina woman in 1990 and gunned down a Missouri mother and daughter eight years later, authorities said Friday.
Advancements in DNA testing enabled investigators to link the three killings and the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, to Robert Brashers, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said. Brashers, a Paragould, Arkansas, man who had a long criminal record, killed himself during a four-hour standoff at a motel in Kennett, a city about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Paragould in an area of southeastern Missouri that's wedged between Arkansas and Tennessee.
"Make no mistake about this gentleman: He is a serial rapist and a serial killer, but no more," New Madrid County, Missouri, Sheriff Terry Stevens said at a news conference.
Brashers killed Genevieve Zitricki of Greenville, South Carolina, in 1990. She was beaten and strangled in her bathtub, authorities said. The year after he raped the Tennessee girl, Brashers killed Sherri Scherer and her 12-year-old daughter, Megan, in their home near Portageville, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) southeast of St. Louis. He also sexually assaulted Megan, police said. more