WSMV Channel 4 Family feels justice slip away after 35 years

Family feels justice slip away after 35 years

A family that thought it was moving towards closure in a 35-year-old murder case now feels justice slipping away.

Three years ago, the prime suspect in a 1977 killing surrendered to police, but now his trial is on hold.

The victim's sister, Judy Brewer, says it's not right.

"We don't hate him. We're just shocked. And we can't figure this out," Judy Brewer says.

Her brother, Jimmy Carroll, was shot dead at a Hohenwald service station in 1977. 

Police arrested James Brewer - no relation to Judy - and his wife Dorothy, but they left town.  For 27 years, they lived a quiet life in Shawnee, OK. Neighbors knew them as the Andersons.  

But then in 2009, James Brewer returned to Hohenwald and turned himself in.

The victim's family expected justice would finally be served, but now they say they wished he'd never come back. 

James Brewer has been declared incompetent to stand trial and his future is up in the air.

"You're not allowed to take their life. And you're not allowed to get away with it forever," says Judy Brewer.

You might wonder, like Judy Brewer does, why James Brewer isn't  locked up in a  psychiatric hospital.

The assistant DA says James Brewer isn't insane - he was debilitated by a series of strokes that left him incapable of helping in his defense.

As a result, he's out in the community, free on bond, waiting for a trial that may or may not ever happen.

Judy Brewer runs into him around Hohenwald a lot.  

"When I run into him in the store, I just freeze. And stare," she says. "We still want justice. We want it played out, however it has to play out."

Dorothy Brewer, meanwhile, was charged earlier this month with second degree murder. Police say she was with her husband at the time of the murder.

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