The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that they had determined with the “highest degree of likelihood” that Brian Scott Bennett murdered Cathy Sposito on June 13th, 1987. Bennett died in 1994. Sposito was murdered while hiking on the Thumb Butte Trail west of Prescott. At around 7 a.m. that morning, she rode her mountain bike to the trailhead and began hiking up the path. A short time later, the killer attempted to sexually assault her and ended up hitting her in the head with a rock and a rachet, stabbing her in the ear and shooting her in the eye. DNA analysis was not yet being used, so the killer was never found nor was a viable suspect identified, so the case went cold. In 2020, numerous detectives and others were working on a 1990 cold case and started to put the pieces together that the Sposito case also tied in. Further research determined that Brian Bennett, who went by Scott, had been arrested for attempted sexual assault in 1990, but was acquitted. It was later discovered Bennett committed suicide in Kentucky in 1994 at the age of 25. His body was exhumed for a DNA swab and in March, it was determined Bennett was the one who sexually assaulted the woman in 1990. After a test of the ratchet, detectives determine he was “likely” the killer of Sposito. Through continued investigation, and DNA testing, four cold cases involving women were solved. If anyone has information related to the Sposito murder, or Bryan Scott Bennett, contact the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office at (928) 771-3260 or Yavapai Silent Witness at 1-800-932-3232.