PITTSBURGH — “If I don’t make it, tell my family I love them.”
Those words were written on a note found July 10, stuck to a mirror in a women’s restroom at Fallingwater in Fayette County. The writer, a woman, said she had been held captive by a man named Corey Brewer since May 1.
Two days earlier, a similar note had been discovered in the women’s restroom at a Walmart on Washington Pike in Scott. The writer claimed she had been physically and sexually assaulted by Brewer, and she was being held against her will in a Scott apartment.
The note pleaded for help from 911 and said it wasn’t a joke.
On Sunday, police arrested Brewer, 40. He faces charges of sexual assault, strangulation, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, terroristic threats, unlawful restraint and simple assault.
Scott police officers went to the apartment address listed in the note on the day the first note was discovered, a criminal complaint said, but no one answered. The officers said that they could hear furniture moving inside the apartment toward the front door, but because they did not have a warrant, they could not force their way inside.
The next day, July 9, police called Brewer on a cellphone number that he had given to them during a separate matter. He answered the call and spoke with officers, who asked whether they could speak to the woman believed to have left the note.
Officers wanted the call to be taken off speaker phone as well, but Brewer refused, saying he wanted to hear what was being said. The woman spoke to officers via speaker phone and told them she was Brewer’s girlfriend, and they were on vacation in New York, the complaint said.
A day after that, the second note was found at Fallingwater.
The second note said that the writer had heard police at the door of the apartment July 8 and added that the abuse had not stopped. She also said she did not write some of the text messages sent to her family from her phone..
According to the criminal complaint, security footage from Fallingwater showed the woman entering the restroom, with Brewer standing nearby.
Pennsylvania State Police contacted the woman’s ex-boyfriend, with whom she has two children, the complaint said, and he told them he had not seen the woman since April and had officially reported her missing.
According to the complaint, that man said the woman and Brewer had a current relationship. Police then confirmed the woman had filed for a protection from abuse order against Brewer last August, but it had expired in September, the complaint said.
The former boyfriend also confirmed to police that the handwriting on the notes matched the woman’s.
On the morning of July 11, this time armed with a warrant, police and Allegheny County SWAT officers went back to Brewer’s apartment, took him into custody and found the woman.
During interviews with police, the woman described months of abuse; Brewer had allegedly punched and stabbed her and cut off clumps of her hair, the complaint said.
Brewer had also attempted to strangle her on multiple occasions, she said, and he had raped her. According to the complaint, police saw red marks, cuts and bruises on the woman and said that her hair was cut unevenly.
The woman told police that Brewer had threatened to kill her and her children if she attempted to leave, the complaint said.
On Monday, Brewer was released after posting 10% of the $5,000 bail set by North Side Magisterial District Judge Robert Ravenstahl Jr. Neither Brewer nor his attorney could be reached for comment Friday.
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