Images from the NBC 7 archive showing the crime scene on Torrey Pines State Beach in 1984. 
 
 Thirty years after a teenager’s body was found on the sand at Torrey Pines State Beach, San Diego homicide investigators say they have identified two suspects in her killing, one of whom was a San Diego Police criminalist. 
 
 Claire Hough, 14, was the victim of a brutal murder on Friday, Aug. 24, 1984. 
 
 The teenager had been staying with her grandparents who lived near the beach. 
 
 When she was found by police officers, she had been beaten, strangled and stabbed, and one of her breasts had been severed. 
 
 Claire Hough's grandparents lived near the beach where her body was found. 
 
 
 
 Using DNA evidence collected at the scene, homicide investigators were able to identity two potential suspects in her murder in November 2012. 
 
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 Detectives say they spent the following two years putting together a case for prosecution. They were preparing to make an arrest when on Tuesday, Oct. 21, Kevin Charles Brown was found dead at Cuyamaca State Park on Highway 79. 
 
 Brown, 62, worked as a criminalist for the San Diego Police Laboratory from 1982 to April 2002. 
 
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 Homicide investigators say they do not believe Brown had any association with the murder investigation or the process of evidence. 
 
 His death has initially been ruled a suicide. 
 
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 The second suspect, Ronald Clyde Tatro, died in a boating accident in 2011. Tatro was 40 years old at the time of the killing. 
 
 According to homicide investigators the two men were identified as suspects in the case through DNA analysis. 
 
 Tatro was identified as a suspect in the killing in August 2014. 
 
 
 
 Anyone with information related to this incident is encouraged to call the San Diego Police Department’s Homicide Unit or Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477. 
 
 San Diego's Unsolved Cold Cases ||||| SAN DIEGO — A one-time San Diego police criminalist who died in an apparent suicide in the East County highlands this week was due to be arrested on suspicion of taking part in the gruesome murder of a teenage girl 30 years ago, authorities reported Thursday. 
 
 Kevin Charles Brown, 62, was found dead at Cuyamaca State Park on Tuesday afternoon. Brown evidently had killed himself, SDPD Lt. Paul Rorrison said, declining to disclose what led to that conclusion. 
 
 In November 2012, cold-case homicide detectives uncovered DNA evidence that allegedly linked Brown and a second man to the slaying of 14-year-old Claire Hough, who was found dead at Torrey Pines State Beach on Aug. 24, 1984. 
 
 The girl, who was visiting and staying with her grandparents at the time, had been beaten, strangled and stabbed, and one of her breasts had been cut off, according to San Diego County Crime Stoppers. 
 
 The other suspect, Ronald Clyde Tatro, died at age 67 in a boating accident in Tennessee the year before investigators got the break in the case. 
 
 Brown was civilian lab worker for the San Diego Police Department from 1982 until his retirement in 2002. 
 
 “The investigation confirmed Kevin Brown had no association with any of the evidence processed in this case; nor was he assigned to any part of the murder investigation,” Rorrison said. 
 
 Since the DNA evidence surfaced in the case two years ago, homicide detectives had “conducted extensive investigative follow-ups to bring forward a prosecutable case,” the lieutenant said. 
 
 At the time of Brown’s death, “preparations were being made” for his arrest, Rorrison said. 
 
 The murder occurred six years after a highly similar one at the same northern San Diego beach. In August 1978, 15-year-old Barbara Nantais was found slain with one of her breasts severed. Her boyfriend was nearby, suffering from severe head wounds that had left him semiconscious and with no memory of the attacks. 
 
 It was unclear if Brown and Tatro were considered suspects in the earlier murder as well. ||||| — A retired San Diego police criminalist apparently killed himself after being linked to the murder of a 14-year-old girl three decades ago, authorities said Thursday. 
 
 The body of Kevin Charles Brown, 62, was found Tuesday at Cuyacama Ranch State Park in the San Diego County town of Julian and his death was being investigated as a suicide, police said, although details were not immediately released. 
 
 Police had been working with the county district attorney's office and were planning to arrest Brown, who had been informed that he was under investigation, homicide Lt. Paul Rorrison said. 
 
 "I can only surmise that was part of the reason" that Brown apparently committed suicide, Rorrison said. 
 
 In November 2012, cold-case detectives used DNA evidence to link Brown and another man to the killing of Claire Hough, a 14-year-old girl who was found at Torrey Pines State Beach in August 1984, police said. She had been beaten and strangled, sand was stuffed in her in her mouth and one of her breasts had been cut off. 
 
 Hough, from Cranston, Rhode Island, was visiting her grandparents in the area when she was killed. 
 
 Brown was a civilian criminalist in the San Diego police laboratory from 1982 to his retirement in 2002 but he never worked on the Hough case, Rorrison said. 
 
 Brown was a "generalist" whose job would have included analyzing narcotics and performing other types of evidence work, Rorrison said. 
 
 The other suspect, Ronald Clyde Tatro, was 67 when he died in a boating accident in 2011 in Surgoinsville, Tennessee, Rorrison said. 
 
 The transient's body was found down a river and there was no evidence of foul play, he said. 
 
 Rorrison declined to say whether the two men knew the girl or had earlier been suspects in her death. However, he said DNA testing — which didn't exist at the time of the girl's death — proved to be a crucial piece of evidence. 
 
 Police are still investigating the similar killing of a 15-year-old Lakewood girl six years earlier. 
 
 The naked body of Barbara Nantais was found at Torrey Pine State Beach in August 1978. She had been beaten and strangled and one breast had been sliced. 
 
 Nantais and some friends had been sleeping on the beach. Her boyfriend was struck in the head and badly injured. 
 
 Rorrison said there was no direct evidence linking the two killings. 
 
 "We are not treating them as related cases," he said. ||||| Brown had been interviewed and knew he was a suspect in the killing and would soon be arrested, Rorrison said. He had no criminal history and an investigation showed that he had no role in processing evidence from the 1984 crime scene, Rorrison said.
– San Diego police have named two suspects in a teen girl's cold-case murder, including a former San Diego Police Department criminologist. DNA evidence found in November 2012 led police to Ronald Clyde Tatro and Kevin Charles Brown—though as of Tuesday, both men are dead. Claire Hough, 14, was found strangled with sand pushed into her mouth at Torrey Pines State Beach on Aug. 24, 1984, the Los Angeles Times reports. One of her breasts had been cut off. Brown, who processed evidence for the force from 1982 to 2002 but was not "assigned to any part of the murder investigation," knew he was a person of interest, FOX 5 reports. The 62-year-old was found dead in a state park on Tuesday, and his death has been ruled a suicide. Tatro was 67 when he died in a 2011 boating accident in Tennessee. Officers had been building a case against Brown over the last two years and were planning an arrest, NBC San Diego reports. "I can only surmise that was part of the reason" he killed himself, a police rep says. Authorities aren't saying what kind of DNA evidence led them to the suspects, how the two men knew each other, or their relationship to the victim. The Rhode Island teen had been visiting her grandparents at the time of her death; it's unclear why she went to the beach that night. Police continue to investigate a similar killing at the same beach in August 1978. The body of Barbara Nantais, 15, was found beaten and strangled, with one breast cut. Police say there's no evidence to link the murders. "We are not treating them as related cases," a rep tells the AP. (A TV show helped bring about an arrest in a 1997 murder.)