Austin Cold Case Resolved: 66-Year-Old Convicted in 1993 Child Assault

On Friday, January 17, 2025, a Travis County jury found Douglas Lee Birden, 66, guilty of two counts of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child in connection with a cold case dating back to 1993.

On November 22, 1993, a 13-year-old girl reported to the Austin Police Department that, while walking home from basketball practice at Peace Junior High School, a man ordered her into his vehicle at gunpoint. The suspect drove her to an isolated area near Harris Branch, where he sexually assaulted her. Investigators collected DNA evidence during the sexual assault examination, which was later processed using federal Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) grant funds.

The DNA profile obtained was entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and eventually matched a sample on file from Douglas Birden, linking him to the assault. Birden was arrested on February 2, 2022, by the Killeen Police Department’s SWAT team and subsequently indicted on March 9, 2022, on two counts of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child.

Jury selection for the trial began on January 13, 2025, with proceedings commencing the following day. On January 17, the jury rendered a guilty verdict, and Birden was sentenced to 30 years in prison by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

The case was prosecuted with the collaboration of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, CPS, Child Abuse and Child Protection Teams, the Austin Police Department, and other law enforcement partners. Federal grant funding from the SAKI Program, which has supported the testing of thousands of untested sexual assault kits in Austin, was instrumental in resolving this decades-old case.