Danielle Wingett, middle, cries as Nathalie Walker, left, and Velvette Williams comfort her while talking about the memory of their friend Jodi Brewer, who was found dead after going missing at the age of 19 in 2003, on Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, at Lorenzi Park in Las Vegas.
Twenty years ago on Sunday, Jodi Brewer’s torso was found wrapped in plastic in the California desert off Interstate 15.
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.
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.
Jodi Brewer’s family and friends think her unsolved 2003 slaying could be connected to Rex Heuermann.
www.reviewjournal.com
