‘A strong conviction’: 20 years after slaying, hope for answers emerges

Twenty years ago on Sunday, Jodi Brewer’s torso was found wrapped in plastic in the California desert off Interstate 15.

In the two decades since, the 19-year-old Las Vegas woman’s family and friends have struggled in their own ways to cope with her death. And while there have been suspects and theories, the main question — who killed her? — remains unanswered.

Now that hope for a resolution is running high again.

Across the country, the arrest of the suspected Long Island Serial Killer in connection with the somewhat-similar slayings of women who were sex workers — Brewer was also a sex worker, though her mother believes she was coerced into it when she was 17 and in high school — is ringing alarm bells for Brewer’s loved ones.

That, coupled with the revelation that the Long Island suspect, Rex Heuermann, has owned timeshare properties in Las Vegas since 2004, has them thinking Heuermann may have been involved in Brewer’s slaying, and they were wondering if Heuermann spent time in Vegas before records show he owned the timeshare.

“It makes me feel hopeful that something will be resolved,” Pamela Brewer, Jodi Brewer’s mother, said in an interview from her home in Oregon.

“There are similarities, but I could only just get my hopes up and cross my fingers,” said the victim’s sister Jacqueline Brewer, who was 13 when her sister died.

Heuermann, 59, an architect, is charged in the deaths of three of the women whose remains were found near Gilgo Beach on Long Island in 2010. He is the prime suspect in the death of a fourth woman’s whose remains also were found there. In total, 11 sets of human remains have been found on or near the beach.

Because most of the victims found on Long Island were young, white women who were sex workers, comparisons have been drawn to Brewer’s death. While the three victims whose deaths Heuermann is charged in were found wrapped in burlap, and not dismembered, other victims found on or near the beach off the main road, Ocean Parkway, were dismembered. Police in Long Island have said it’s possible that one or more serial killers could be responsible.

In Las Vegas, Jodi Brewer’s case has been linked to other similar unsolved killings where the dismembered remains of young women were found off the side of the road. Brewer’s remains were found near I-15 and Cima Road, about 25 miles from the Nevada state line.

In a 2008 Review-Journal story, Las Vegas police said they were investigating possible links between the cases of women who had been sex workers who were killed or who had disappeared. They included Brewer, Lindsay Harris and Jessica Foster, as well as possibly a fourth person, Misty Saens. At the time, police said the women may have been killed by the same person, possibly by a truck driver.

Harris, 21, disappeared from Henderson on May 4, 2005. Later that month, her legs were found in grass off Interstate 55, about 15 miles south of Springfield, Illinois.

Foster, 21, was last seen in North Las Vegas between late March and early April 2006. She has not been found.

The partial remains of Misty Saens, 25, were found wrapped in plastic and a cloth sheet off of State Route 159 near Blue Diamond on March 6, 2003.

In 2015, police said they were investigating whether Neal Falls, a man killed by a sex worker in West Virginia, could be a possible suspect in the cases of Brewer, Harris, Foster and Saens.

When asked if she thinks there is a connection between Rex Heuermann and her daughter’s death, the late teen’s mother said, “Yes, I do. Absolutely.”

Jodi Brewer’s friends from her school days, Velvette Williams, Danielle Wingett and Nathalie Walker, are either convinced Heuermann was involved, or think there is a possibility.

“I have a strong conviction that it is him,” Williams said. “My hope is for a final answer for the families.”

Experts skeptical

Experts, however, say while it’s possible the accused Heuerman may be end up being linked to some or all of the unsolved Las Vegas homicides, they are also skeptical. They said a trucker doubling as a serial killer appeared to be the more likely scenario.

“I can fully understand their their desire for answers and closure, and I wish them peace and that this will be resolved,” said Las Vegas-based criminologist Dr. Scott Bonn. “But just, you know, as a criminologist and looking at the facts, I’m just skeptical that Rex Heuermann is the answer.”

Thomas Hargrove of the nonprofit Murder Accountability Project, which tracks unsolved homicides nationwide, said some of the circumstances surrounding Brewer’s slaying may not line up.

“Yes, it’s possible,” he said. “But those names specifically come up a lot, and usually in the context of a highway serial killer. A trucker. And the body recovery far away from Vegas really argues, for me, quite a different M.O.”

Brewer also said she was told by a Metropolitan Police Department detective that DNA in Brewer’s case, as well as DNA found in Saens’ investigation, will be tested and compared with DNA samples from Rex Heuermann.

Brewer’s claims haven’t been confirmed by the Metropolitan Police Department, which declined to offer any specifics on the investigation.

“We are aware of Rex Heuermann’s connection to Las Vegas,” a Metro spokesperson said in a statement. “We are currently reviewing our unsolved cases to see if he has any involvement.”

The Suffolk County Police Department in New York, which has been investigating the Long Island cases, declined to comment.

Efforts to reach Saens’ family were unsuccessful.

‘A great person’

As for Jodi Brewer, she was many things to her family and friends: beautiful, wild, smart, funny, a good friend, and a leader, not a follower. And just lots of fun to be around. They remembered the good times at Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas.

But at the end of her life Brewer was walking down a dark road, her friends say, one that she would sadly never get a chance to walk away from.

“She had so much time to change it, and I think she could have done that and she would have been a great person,” said Rachael Butner, 39, who was one of Brewer’s closest friends. “She was a great person.”

For Pamela Brewer, then living in Las Vegas, her nightmare began in the middle of August 2003. After her daughter hadn’t come home to their townhouse near Jones Boulevard and the 215 Beltway and hadn’t been heard from in 24 hours, she reported the teen missing, she said.

Brewer had been frantically calling her daughter’s friends trying to figure out where her daughter was. Her friends, some of whom had barely been in touch with the young woman because of the turn her life had taken, didn’t know anything, but they were worried. The days passed.

On Aug. 29, 2003, Brewer was at work at Binion’s on Fremont Street when she saw a newspaper article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal about human remains found off Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County. The article described tattoos on the torso. A hummingbird hovering above a rose on her left breast. A capital M with a star on her lower back.

“That letter M was not just a letter M,” Brewer said. “It said Marie.” Marie was Jodi Brewer’s middle name.

She called the detectives in San Bernardino County. The next day, Metro detectives would visit her. She would wait six months for confirmation of what she already knew: the remains were her daughter’s. And through it all, Brewer said, she had to go to work with a smile on her face.

“It was a nightmare,” Brewer said.

Contact Brett Clarkson at bclarkson@reviewjournal.com