ESCALANTE, Utah, Dec. 9, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — A 17-year-old boy accused of murdering a staff member at the Turn-About Ranch, a youth rehabilitation center north of Escalante, has been charged in adult court with two first-degree felonies.
Clay Brewer, of Snowflake, Ariz., has been charged with criminal homicide — aggravated murder in the death of 61-year-old Jimmy Woolsey. Brewer also was charged with the attempted criminal homicide — aggravated murder of a second staff member, 35-year-old Alicia Keller.
In addition, Brewer was charged Friday morning with aggravated robbery, failure to stop at the command of police, reckless endangerment, and tampering with evidence in the case, which stems from the Tuesday morning attacks and the car theft and police chase that followed.
The attack on Woolsey began at about 7:35 a.m. Tuesday when he came to check on a campfire built by a group of male students in the residential facility, which treats troubled youth ages 12 to 18.
Woolsey had just turned his back when police say Brewer, intending to escape from the facility, pulled out a hidden weapon and struck an estimated 10 blows to Woolsey’s head, according to a probable cause statement. The Escalante man died at the scene.
According to the statement, Brewer later described the weapon as a metal stick, and Keller said it was a rod of rebar.
A student who had witnessed the fatal beating ran from the campfire area to a nearby cabin, and alerted Keller and two female students that Brewer had hit Woolsey, according to a probable cause statement.
Keller walked out of a cabin to look for Brewer, and when she saw the teen was covered with blood, she raced back for the cabin as he charged her.
Brewer reportedly caught up before she could latch the door shut, Keller said in the statement:
“He’s at me full blast, hands up, with the rebar in his hands, and he hit me on the top of the head twice.”
Keller got into the cabin and attempted to close the door as the teen, who was much stronger, was trying to pull it open. Keller said she was trying to slam Brewer’s hands in the door and push his fingers from the narrow opening when he got the idea of stealing Woolsey’s truck keys. The teen returned to the body, which he had covered with his sleeping bag.
Unable to start Woolsey’s truck, Brewer returned to the cabin and yelled through the window that he was going to break in and kill everyone, and that he really wanted to leave, the statement says. Keller offered to give Brewer her car keys if he would stop hurting people, she said. He took the keys and sped off in Keller’s blue sedan.
Keller was later transported to an area hospital where she received numerous stitches to close wounds on her hands and head.
Brewer led law enforcement agents on a high-speed chase through Escalante, at times going 60 in 25 mph residential zones, according to documents. The chase ended after officers performed a pit maneuver, causing Brewer’s vehicle to spin, hit a tree and flip. The teenager was then taken into custody.
“I told Brewer that he had endangered a lot of people by his driving,” said arresting officer Eric Dunton, Garfield County Sheriff’s Office, in the probable cause statement. “I told him that school was starting and there were parents taking their kids to school, and his driving could have killed someone. Brewer asked me, ‘Did you hear about the man at Roundy? Is he still alive?'”
After waiving his Miranda rights, Brewer admitted to beating Woolsey, the statement said. Brewer said he had felt suicidal since the second of his five days at the ranch, and had drunk bleach the evening before in an attempt to kill himself. He woke up “heartless” in the morning, Brewer told Dunton. The teen reportedly said he felt betrayed by his parents, who had sent him to the ranch because of a pill addiction.
Brewer said that his addiction had taken over his life and that it controlled him, the probable cause statement says.
“When you’re coming off tobacco and drugs like I was, you lose your mind. That’s where I was at. I lost my mind.”
The teen also said that during the chase, he had tried to make sheriff’s deputies believe he had a gun so they would shoot and kill him.
According to the probable cause statement, Brewer said he never planned to beat anyone, and Woosley was “a great guy.”
Brewer’s next court date has not yet been announced. He is being held at a juvenile facility in Richfield. His bail is set at $1 million.
If convicted, Brewer will not face the death penalty because of his age, but he could be sentenced to life in prison.
I feel for his family. I feel for the family of the youth involved. I feel for the other staff member who was also hurt. I feel for the other kids who had to witness this. I feel for all the people at the ranch. This is just so unbelievably sad.