Betty Gail Brown

Last Updated on February 27, 2026

On 27th October 1961, Betty Gail Brown was discovered murdered in her car on the Transylvania College campus.

Her body was discovered at 3 am in the front seat of her car.

She had been strangled to death by her own bra, and there were no signs of sexual assault.

Her murder remains unsolved to this day.

Investigation

According to the autopsy, Betty Gail Brown was murdered at around 1 am.

She had a head wound, believed to have been when her attacker forced her head into the dashboard.

It was clear that she had put up a fight against her killer.

Her handbag and books were still in the car, and nothing was taken.

Betty had been studying with friends on the evening of her murder.

It is believed she got to her car around midnight.

Betty’s car keys were thrown into the back seat of the vehicle.

There were three clear fingerprints left on the car by the “suspect”.

There were also several smudged and partial prints.

More than 250 male students at the university came forward to provide their fingerprints.

Two of the clear fingerprints belonged to Betty’s parents.

The third belonged to a local mechanic who had worked on the car.

Read more about the investigation in Who Killed Betty Gail Brown? Murder, Mistrial, and Mystery (*AD)

Evidence

All of the evidence collected was destroyed or lost after the arrest of Alex Arnold.

The attorney’s office stated that they were unable to “reflect the location, condition or existence of files, materials or evidence related to the case.”

Her clothing was retested in 2005 after being released by a relative.

The retesting of the clothing yielded no new evidence.

Confession of Alex Arnold

Alex Arnold confessed to the killing in 1965.

He claimed that he had approached her car to borrow a light for his cigarette.

When one of the women was rude to him, he reached into the car and forced her head hard into the dashboard.

He claimed the second woman ran off, and he strangled Betty Gail Brown with her bra.

When the case went to trial, it ended with a hung jury, and it was declared a mistrial.

The case was never retried.

Suspects

Police believe that the suspect was known to Betty.

They think that would have had to let them into the car with her.

Her own mother, Quincy, was rumoured to be a suspect.

She was cleared after taking a polygraph test.

Charles Risdon was briefly considered a suspect as he was one of the last people to see her alive.

His behaviour in the days following the killing was also suspicious to the investigators.

Adolph Laudenberg was briefly considered a suspect after his fingerprint match was inconclusive.

He was excluded by the FBI in 2012.

They revealed that his fingerprints did not match those left at the scene after further testing.

There were unconfirmed rumours that Betty was a secret lesbian.

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