More than 45 years ago, Kathryn Donohue, a 31-year-old union secretary, went out for dinner in Georgetown with co-workers after work. Early the next morning, on March 3, 1979, a person found her body in a parking lot in Glenarden, Maryland, miles away from where she lived in Arlington, Virginia. According to charging documents, she had been violently raped and strangled.
Through a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA (COLD) Program grant awarded to Prince George’s County (Maryland) Police Department, retesting the DNA evidence in the case using advanced technology provided a new lead late last year, enabling law enforcement to pursue justice. Investigators were able to identify a relative of the man who allegedly raped and killed Donohue. Per the charging documents, the evidence pointed them toward now 82-year-old Rodger Zodas Brown of Pinehurst, North Carolina. They took a plastic fork from the trash can outside his home and tested the DNA, then knocked on his door and arrested him after it matched a sample taken from Donahue’s slip.
Brown has been charged with first-degree murder, rape and related counts in Donohue’s killing. Brown is in North Carolina awaiting extradition to Prince George’s County, Maryland. His extradition hearing is now set for May 28, 2025, in Moore County, North Carolina. He faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
