Trial opens for defendant accused of killing American Airlines pilot dad, mom in Crowley
Troy Brewer was on his knees with his hands in front of his face when his teenage son fired a bullet from a 9mm Glock handgun into the man’s body, according to a theory developed by Tarrant County prosecutors.
After Carl Brewer killed his adoptive father at the family’s house in Crowley, the 17-year-old, the prosecutors allege, used dolly platforms and rope to drag the 60-year-old man from the master bedroom to a shower.
“For the blood to drain,” Anthony Salinas, a Tarrant County assistant criminal district attorney, told a jury in the state’s opening statement on Wednesday before witness testimony began in Carl Brewer’s trial on capital murder in the 485th District Court.
Mary Brewer, who was 64, lay in a living room. Carl Brewer had also shot his adoptive mother, once in the neck, prosecutors allege. He zipped up her body in a sleeping bag cover and put it in a cart, they allege. A plastic bag was over her head.
Mary Brewer may have been seated when Carl Brewer fired once upon her, according to the prosecutors’ theory that is based on the trajectory of the bullet and the heights of the mother and son. She, too, appears to have been using her hands to block her head when she was shot.
For the two nights after the killings in November 2016, Carl Brewer stayed in the house with the bodies of his parents.
Troy Brewer was an American Airlines pilot and a retired U.S. Marine. Mary Brewer was a nurse who worked at a Veterans Affairs hospital. The couple adopted Carl and a brother from a Russian orphanage. They adopted a third boy from the United States.
Their carotid arteries were penetrated by a bullet, and they died within a few minutes of extensive blood loss, testified Dr. Mark Shelly, a forensic pathologist.
After smoking marijuana, Carl Brewer told a friend that he had killed Brewer’s parents, and the friend telephoned 911 to report Brewer’s statement, according to a recording of the call that prosecutors played for the jury. Smelling the odor of death at the front door of the house in the 800 block of Buffalo Court, police officers broke a glass back door, found the bodies and heard movement on the second floor. After an hourslong SWAT encounter in which officers launched gas canisters, Carl Brewer was arrested.
Now 25, Brewer is represented by criminal defense attorneys Jack Strickland and Steve Gebhardt. Salinas is prosecuting the case with Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorney Lloyd Whelchel.
A magistrate found in April 2019 that the defendant was incompetent to stand trial, and he was taken to a state mental health facility for treatment. A psychologist in March 2020 concluded Brewer was competent to stand trial, a determination that was also made earlier this year.
Brewer was indicted in February 2017 under a statute that alleges that he intentionally and knowingly caused the death of multiple people at the same time.
In its presentation during jury selection, the defense suggested it may argue that the evidence supports that one of the homicides was a murder and the other a manslaughter, a reckless killing, or that the deaths were justified by self-defense.
Judge Steven Jumes is presiding at the trial.
During a Wednesday off-the-record portion of an evidence suppression hearing in which the defense was to argue the defendant did not voluntarily waive his right to not participate in a custodial interview, Brewer attempted to get the judge’s attention.
“Your honor?” he said five times over a couple of minutes.
Judge Jumes told the defendant that he would entertain Brewer’s statements or questions, but advised that the comments may be unhelpful or cause damage to his case. The defendant’s attorneys met with Brewer in a room adjacent to the courtroom known as the holdover.
After he emerged with his client and colleague Gebhardt, Strickland appeared perturbed that Brewer had declined to heed his advice not to speak to the judge.
On the record but outside the presence of the jury, Strickland dressed down his client. The defense attorney gestured to a screen that showed a still image of a Crowley Police Department interview room in which Brewer answered detectives’ questions.
Participating in the interview was a mistake, Strickland said, and Brewer was about to make a similar error.
Brewer seemed intent on repeating legal missteps, Strickland told the defendant, “until they put you in the penitentiary for the rest of your life.”
Undeterred, Brewer told Judge Jumes that he did not recall waiving his right to not respond to police inquires, but also suggested it was a knowing waiver. A state district court is not the appropriate venue for the case, the defendant also argued.
“I disagree with your legal assessment,” Judge Jumes said before ruling that the defendant’s statements to the police could be presented to the jury.
On Thursday, the panel watched a video recording of the two-hour interview.
Crowley Police Department Detective Joshua White began with a question about the family’s Thanksgiving menu six days earlier. The Brewers ate ham but not stuffing, the double homicide suspect said.
For much of the interview, Brewer, then a Southwest Christian School junior, denied he was a killer. He was unwavering in his account that he had arrived home and discovered the bodies.
The friend’s report of Brewer’s statement that he killed his parents suggested that Brewer was not being truthful, Detective White noted.
“Tell me what happened, Carl. Tell me what happened between you and your parents,” White asked.
“I didn’t kill my parents. I wouldn’t kill my parents,” the suspect said.
Later in the interview, White told Brewer that he knew his father was a large man (he was 6’2 and 260 pounds; Carl then was about 5’7 and 122 pounds) and was familiar with Troy Brewer’s flares of anger.
“I know it’s been rough at the house,” the detective said. “I’ve seen your dad when he’s mad.”
Detective White told his interview subject that he had helped to book in Troy Brewer when he was arrested for busting the nose of one of Carl’s brothers. The assault charge was later dismissed.
Texas Ranger Ike Upshaw began to interrogate Brewer and told him that he could either be assessed as a sociopath and remorseless killer or as a kid who perhaps had an explanation that was reasonable.
He did not want to miss an opportunity to tell his story, Upshaw advised.
In a striped jail uniform, Brewer twisted from side to side in a black office chair.
A clock ticked during stretches of silence.
He took a drink from a bottle of water.
“So what happened was I shot my dad,” Brewer eventually said.
The teenager swiveled in his chair.
He picked a tissue from a box and held it to his face. He sighed, took another drink and sighed again.
“I shot my dad, but I didn’t shoot my mom,” Brewer said before describing a hallway struggle in which the defendant wrested a gun from his father.
His mother “got shot accidentally,” he said.
“I guess he tried to shoot me. I pushed the gun away,” Brewer said. His mother was struck by a round, he said.
As the interview continued, Brewer said that he intentionally shot his father because the defendant was mad that his mother had been shot.
If he is convicted of capital murder, Brewer would automatically be sentenced to life in prison and would become eligible for parole consideration after serving 40 years.
The state rested its case in chief late Thursday afternoon.
The defense, which deferred offering an opening statement until after the state rested, intends to address the jury Friday morning.
This story was originally published May 29, 2024 at 9:53 PM.
