Hunter Walker August 2, 2013, 9:10 PM For the last three weeks, news outlets in Utah have been reporting on a mysterious criminal case involving a sheriff’s deputy, his wife, and his father, who is the local fire chief in Moab, UT. However, the exact circumstances of the alleged crime have remained unknown to the general public, even after the Utah attorney general took over the case due to potential conflicts of interest stemming from the family’s extensive ties to the local government in their hometown.
Now, police records obtained by TPM, reveal for the first time that this case allegedly began with a love triangle involving a father and son that ultimately ended in a booze-fueled night of rage and murderous threats.
The son, Timothy “TJ” Brewer, was initially charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, two counts of domestic violence in front a child, assault on a police officer, intoxication, and disorderly conduct. After an investigation by the sheriff of another county, the Utah attorney general last week reduced the charges against Brewer to two misdemeanors: assault and assault against a peace officer. Those charges remain pending.
The story began on the evening of July 11 and spilled over into the early morning hours of July 12. Brewer, a deputy with the sheriff’s department in Grand County, Utah, and his wife, Logan, invited his father to their home for drinks. The elder Brewer, Wesley “Corky” Brewer, was the fire chief in Moab and director of emergency management for Grand County. TJ was one of several law enforcement officers in the extended Brewer family, which includes multiple police officers and local sheriff’s deputies.
TJ would later tell officers that after dinner, which he cooked, his wife went upstairs to put one of their children to bed. Soon afterward, he realized he was alone in the house “when the kid she put to bed came down stairs,” according to police reports.
“He went up to check on where his wife was,” one officer recounted in the reports. “He stated that when he opened the door to his son’s room, he saw his wife on top of his dad” having sex.
The sight of his father having sex with his wife allegedly sent TJ into a rage. He “beat the fuck” out of his dad, he later told police. Logan, TJ’s wife, told police later that night that TJ had hit her and “pistol whipped” his father with one of multiple guns he kept in his home. She also allegedly said all three of them had been drinking. The officer’s account of his interview with Logan does not specifically address the claim that she and Corky were having sex. Corky’s injuries prevented him from speaking to officers that night, the records show.
Somehow, after the alleged confrontation in the bedroom at TJ’s home, all three participants managed to leave the residence. Logan went to her parents’ house. In his incident report, Moab Police Officer Shaun Hansen said Corky, the father, returned to his own home where he was “apparently looking for a firearm.”
“His wife, Cindy Brewer, denied him access to a firearm,” Hansen wrote in his report. “Corky then grabbed a butcher knife and stabbed himself two times, puncturing a lung and slicing his liver.”
Corky was initially taken to Moab Regional Hospital. According to the police, when TJ learned his father was hospitalized, he headed to the hospital to kill him.
What ensued was a dramatic confrontation in the hospital parking lot. TJ was initially confronted by his uncle, Curt Brewer, who is also a sheriff’s deputy. When police arrived at the hospital, they found TJ fighting with Curt outside the hospital. TJ was not wearing a shirt or shoes, was screaming, and in the words of one officer, “had the odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath as he spoke.”
“He stated several times that he wanted to kill his dad, that he wanted his gun to ‘finish the job,’” one officer wrote in his report.
Officers continued to try to subdue TJ, who remained belligerent.
“TJ made numerous remarks to each officer and deputy that arrived, about all of us being stupid, dumb asses, and at one point stated we needed to call someone with a brain to come and talk with him,” the officer wrote.
TJ was taken into custody without further incident, but for the next three weeks the dramatic serious of confrontations, including the public standoff in the hospital parking lot, remained unreported.
Part of the reason so little information about the case has been revealed is the variety of agencies that are involved due to the ties TJ and his family have throughout Moab and Grand County. Due to the risk of potential conflicts of interest, local officials made the decision to hand the case over to the sheriff in Utah County rather than the department in Grand County where TJ was a deputy. For the same reason, the Utah Attorney General is prosecuting the case rather than the local district attorney.
After his arrest in the early hours of July 12, TJ was held in the San Juan County Jail. He was initially facing charges of attempted homicide, aggravated assault, two counts of domestic violence in front a child, assault on a police officer, intoxication, and disorderly conduct. These charges were reduced after the investigation by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. TJ is currently charged with two class A misdemeanors; assault and assault against a peace officer.
When TPM initially began looking into the case on July 18, both the Moab City Police Department, which arrested Brewer, and the Grand County Sheriff’s Department told us they had no records to release because other agencies were handling the case. After we filed a request under the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act, known as GRAMA, with the Moab County Police Department for TJ’s arrest report and other related records, we received an email July 30 informing us that, after speaking with the Utah Attorney General’s office, Moab Police Chief Mike Navarre was “able to close the report” on Brewer and would release it.
TJ was released on bail July 15. He has been prohibited from drinking alcohol and from contacting Corky or his wife. Visitation with his children must be supervised. TJ resigned from the Grand County Sheriff’s Department and is next due in court August 6. He did not answer phone calls TPM made to his residence in Moab.
Corky, who was later airlifted to a Colorado hospital for treatment and has reportedly since been released, also did not answer a phone call made to his residence. An administrative assistant answered when TPM called Corky’s number at the fire department, where he had been chief since 1989.
“He has actually resigned and has taken retirement,” the assistant said.
Read the full police case file below (reader discretion is advised):
TJ Brewer Case File
Utah
Hunter Walker Hunter Walker is a national affairs reporter for TPM. He came to the site in 2013 from the New York Observer. He has also written for New York Magazine, Gawker, the Village Voice, Forbes, The Daily, and Deadspin. He can be reached at hunter(at)talkingpointsmemo.com
