A 62-year-old man was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison in connection with a 1982 murder in Ector County, the Texas Department of Public Safety announced Wednesday.
Billy Wayne Ludwigson pleaded guilty and was sentenced by a jury last month in the killing of 64-year-old Velma Nesset.
Nesset would usually walk to her job at the Permian Mall, now Music City Mall, in Odessa but her co-workers and family grew concerned when she didn’t show up for her shift on April 19, 1982. They filed a police report and her body was later found partially nude in a drainage culvert in the 4200 block of Tanglewood Lane, authorities said.
Nesset had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death, according to news reports.
A man was arrested in the slaying and confessed to killing Nesset but was acquitted in a 1983 trial due to a false confession and lack of evidence, according to the news release.
There weren’t any breakthroughs on the case until almost 40 years later.
Nasset’s case became eligible for DPS’s federally funded sexual assault kit initiative program, which covered the costs of advanced DNA testing and genealogy research through Bode Technologies, according to the release. The testing led to Ludwigson being identified as a suspect and additional DNA testing connected him to the case.
Ludwigson was arrested in July 2020 in Denver, Colo., by Odessa police and Texas Rangers and was extradited to Texas in October 2020, officials said.
Police didn’t say a suspected motive in the killing.