Thanks to DNA advances, man given 20-year term for 1984 murder in Uptown apartment

Thanks to advances in DNA technology, a man has received a 20-year prison term for a murder in the Uptown area of Minneapolis more than 40 years ago.

Matthew Russell Brown, 67, of Ingleside, Ill., was sentenced Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the stabbing of Robert A. Miller, 32, at a home in the 3200 block of Girard Avenue S. in 1984.

With credit for time in jail since his arrest in June 2023, Brown is expected to serve the first 12½ years of his sentence in prison and the balance on supervised release.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said the linchpin in the case was a disposable cup discarded by Brown that contained DNA matching the blood at the scene.

“As we all know, advances in technology have improved DNA analysis,” the Minneapolis Police Department said in a statement released at the time of Brown’s arrest. “Over the past eight years, MPD homicide investigators assigned to the FBI’s Cold Case Task Force have been working diligently with the BCA Forensics Lab to identify DNA found at the scene and narrow down a possible list of suspects. One lead led to another until the MPD homicide investigators were able to identify a suspect in the case.”

According to the criminal complaint:

At 2:30 a.m. on July 19, 1984, police arrived at Miller’s apartment, where two women in the hall said a man armed with a knife had broken into the building and attacked them.

Officers found Miller dead with “stab wounds to his face, head, chest, back and shoulders,” the complaint read.

Investigators collected blood from the kitchen floor and a doorknob, likely from the suspect inadvertently cutting himself.

In 2018, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension used the blood samples to establish a DNA profile for a suspect, and genealogists determined the blood belonged to Brown. But they failed to secure a new DNA sample from him to prove their finding — until March 2023. That’s when investigators recovered the cup containing the DNA that matched blood from the 1984 crime scene and tracked down Brown in Illinois.

Staff writer Andy Mannix contributed to this story.