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Audio tapes of Maine man played at cold case murder trial

Sophie Sergie was found with multiple injuries and a gunshot wound in a bathroom of a dorm at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

Credit: AP

Steven Downs is led into a courtroom for arraignment, Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska. An attorney entered not-guilty pleas for Downs, who is charged in the 1993 sexual assault and murder of 20-year-old Sophie Sergie on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. Authorities say DNA linked Downs to the crime. He was arrested in February in Maine and fought extradition to Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

JUNEAU, Alaska — Audio recordings of a Maine man speaking to police were played Wednesday for jurors hearing murder and rape charges against him in connection with the death of a 20-year-old student in Alaska in 1993.

Sophie Sergie was found with multiple injuries and a gunshot wound in a dorm bathroom at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

It wasn’t until 2018 that police identified 47-year-old Steven Downs, of Auburn, Maine, as a potential suspect.

The Sun Journal reports Downs can be heard in the recordings made by Maine police in 2019 denying that he knew Sergie and saying “there has to be a mistake.”

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