A young college student lost her life tragically on a popular hiking trail in Arizona many years ago. However, recent developments have shed light on her case. Authorities have revealed that Catherine “Cathy” Sposito’s killer was a serial predator who later took his own life. Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes made the announcement, citing DNA evidence that connects Bryan Scott Bennett to Sposito’s murder in 1987, as reported by the AP. The body of Bennett, who died by suicide in 1994, was exhumed last year, and DNA found on a wrench used in the crime matched his.
By revealing this information now, authorities aim to determine whether there were other victims besides Sposito and the three other women believed to have been attacked by Bennett. Sheriff Rhodes expressed that based on the behavior of violent predators like Bennett, it is highly improbable that these four cases are the only ones. Sposito was hiking on Thumb Butte Trail near downtown Prescott on the early morning of June 13, 1987, when she was brutally assaulted. Investigators found that she was struck with a rock and a wrench, shot in the eye, and stabbed in the head.
Although other hikers heard Sposito’s cries for help, they arrived too late to save her. The shocking nature of her murder deeply affected the Prescott and Yavapai County communities, as Thumb Butte Trail had always been considered safe. At the time of Sposito’s death, Bennett was a junior at Prescott High School. He had recently moved from Calvin, Kentucky, and had only spent a year and a half in Prescott before dropping out. Authorities now suspect that he was responsible for a sexual assault on another woman on the same trail in 1990, at the same time of day.
Two months after that incident, Bennett allegedly attempted to sexually assault a girl at a house party by locking her in a room. He was arrested but later acquitted. In 1993, Bennett reportedly kidnapped a woman at knifepoint at a post office in Prescott and sexually assaulted her multiple times. Fortunately, the victim was rescued when the police pulled over the car they were in. Although Bennett was arrested, he was never convicted. In 2017, advancements in DNA technology enabled investigators to identify a descendant of Bennett, which ultimately linked him to the second attack on Thumb Butte Trail. They then traced the evidence back to Sposito’s case. (Read more about cold cases.)
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