Steven Downs biography: 13 things about Auburn, Maine nurse

Steven Harris Downs is an American nurse who grew up Maine, United States. After graduating from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in College, Alaska, USA, he lived in Arizona, USA then returned to Maine.

Downs worked as a nurse in Auburn, Maine. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. From 1992 to 1996, he attended the UAF.
2. He was a UAF student when Sophie Sergie of Pitkas Point, Alaska was found dead at Bartlett Hall in the university on April 26, 1993. He and his then roommate Nicholas Dazer lived on the third floor of the university’s dorm and she was sexually assaulted, stabbed multiple times and fatally shot with a .22-calibre firearm on the second floor. He and Dazer were among the students interviewed by investigators. He and Dazer denied having any knowledge of the crime.
3. He had an H&R .22-calibre revolver, Dazer told a cold case investigator in 2010. The investigator interviewed Dazer and others who lived at Barlett Hall at the UAF when Sergie was murdered on April 26, 1993.
4. His aunt’s deoxyribonucleic acid profile emerged when a Parabon NanoLabs forensic genealogist prepared a report on December 18, 2018, comparing the suspect’s genetic material from the crime scene where Sergie was murdered on April 26, 1993.
5. When Maine State Police visited him at his home in Maine on February 13, 2019, he denied any knowledge of Sergie’s murder and suggested that soldiers stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska at the time of her death should be investigated.
6. On February 14, 2019, a cheek swab was taken from him for DNA testing. It matched the semen found on Sergie so he was arrested in Maine without incident. He was charged with first-degree sexual assault and first-degree murder in relation to Sergie’s death on April 26, 1993. He was also charged in Maine with being a fugitive of justice.
7. In August 2019, he was extradited from Auburn to Alaska.
8. On January 12, 2022, his murder trial started.
9. On February 10, 2022, a jury in Fairbanks Superior Court found him guilty of first-degree sexual assault and first-degree murder in Sergie’s death.
10. On September 26, 2022, Alaska Superior Court Judge Thomas Temple sentenced him to 67 years for Sergie’s murder plus the mandatory 8 years for her sexual assault. He was moved from the county jail in Fairbanks to the Goose Creek Correctional Center in Wasilla, Alaska.
11. In October 2022, he filed notice that he would appeal his conviction and sentence through his lead attorney James Howaniec.
12. In November 2022, a judge granted the trial attorneys for him permission to withdraw from the case.
13. He was 48 years old when the court assigned in December 2022 a public defender to represent his appeal of his conviction and sentence.