1984 cold case suspect worked in San Diego police lab

SAN DIEGO -- A retired San Diego police official died in an apparent suicide, after recently being linked to the murder of a 14-year-old girl three decades ago, authorities said Thursday.

The body of Kevin Charles Brown, 62, was found Tuesday in California's Cuyacama Ranch State Park, the Associated Press reports.

Police had been working with the county district attorney's office and were planning to arrest Brown, who had been informed that he was under investigation, Lt. Paul Rorrison said.

"I can only surmise that was part of the reason" that Brown apparently committed suicide, Rorrison said.

In November 2012, cold-case homicide detectives uncovered DNA evidence that allegedly linked Brown and a second man to the slaying of 14-year-old Claire Hough, according to CBS affiliate KFMB.

Hough was found dead at Torrey Pines State Beach on Aug. 24, 1984. The Cranston, Rhode Island teen had been visiting her grandparents before she was killed.

Brown was a civilian criminalist in the San Diego police laboratory from 1982 until his retirement in 2002, but he never worked on the Hough case, Rorrison said.

Brown was a "generalist" whose job would have included analyzing narcotics and performing other types of evidence work, Rorrison said.

The other suspect, a transient named Ronald Clyde Tatro, was 67 when he died in a boating accident in 2011 in Surgoinsville, Tennessee, Rorrison said.

His body was found down a river and there was no evidence of foul play, he said.

Rorrison declined to say whether the two men knew the girl or had earlier been suspects in her death.

However, he said DNA testing -- which didn't exist at the time of the girl's death -- provided crucial evidence.

Police are also investigating a similar killing of a 15-year-old California girl six years earlier.

The naked body of Barbara Nantais was found at Torrey Pine State Beach in August 1978. She had been beaten and strangled and also had one breast slashed.

Nantais and some friends had been sleeping on the beach. Her boyfriend was struck in the head and badly injured.

Rorrison said there was no direct evidence linking the two killings.

"We are not treating them as related cases," he said.