Nebraska man arrested in 1983 cold case killing of Iranian exchange student
A Nebraska man was arrested last week and charged Tuesday with murdering an Iranian college student in 1983.
Cops said Bud Christensen, 67, sliced and stabbed Firozeh Dehghanpour to death almost 40 years ago, the Omaha World Herald reported.
Dehghanpour, a student at the University of Nebraska Omaha, was found dead Aug. 14, 1983, across the Missouri River near the town of Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Investigators in 1983 believed Dehghanpour, an exchange student from Iran, knew her killer, according to the World Herald. They interviewed more than 100 UNO students, but turned up nothing,
Steven Martin, a friend of Dehghanpour, contacted law enforcement in Omaha and Council Bluffs in the intervening years, encouraging them to look into her case, the World Herald reported. Jim Doty, of the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office in Iowa, took him up on it.
Doty’s team ran DNA on evidence collected in 1983, which matched Christensen, a registered sex offender in Nebraska, according to the World Herald. Christensen was not previously a suspect in the case, but cops said they found further evidence that implicated him the crime.
Police said there is no evidence Dehghanpour was “sexually attacked” prior to her death.
The Pottawatomie County Sheriff contacted neighboring authorities, who arrested Christensen last Friday, the World Herald reported. He was charged with first-degree murder and is awaiting extradition to Iowa, where he will be prosecuted.
