Arizona man charged in Tennessee cold case murder from 1996

PHOENIX — An Arizona man has been charged in the 1996 cold case murder of a 23-year-old Tennessee woman after DNA at the crime scene matched his.

Police in Clarksville, Tennessee, linked DNA found at the scene of Crista Bramlitt’s murder to 48-year-old Kenneth Hudspeth.

Bramlitt’s body was found by her landlord at a local mobile home park on the afternoon of Oct. 28, 1996.

Her body had obvious signs of homicide and indicators of sexual assault.

An autopsy later revealed that her cause of death was suffocation.

Crista Bramlitt (Courtesy of Clarksville Police Department)

A sexual assault evidence collection kit that was taken at the scene was sent to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, who built a DNA profile and loaded it into the Combined DNA Index System in hopes of a match.

But that match didn’t come until more than two decades later, when Hudspeth’s name came up in February as a link in Arizona after he was arrested on a felony assault charge.

During an April interview with Clarksville police, Hudspeth said he was the last person to see Bramlitt alive and did not refute other facts in the case.

Hudspeth was taken into custody April 16 by Phoenix police and charged with criminal homicide.

He will be transported and booked into Montgomery County Jail in Clarksville.

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