Police Recapture Escaped Murderer

Convicted killer Terrence Brewer who escaped from jail by pretending to be an injured visitor was apprehended Wednesday night when he turned himself in to a Trenton newspaper. Brewer, 38, who was awaiting sentencing after being convicted of committing a murder during a 1998 Trenton street robbery, escaped from the Mercer County Correction Center last Thursday. He was apprehended at The Times of Trenton on Wednesday night after he arrived at the newspaper with his bail bondsman. Brewer talked to the paper at about 7:30 p.m. and told a reporter he wanted to turn himself in.

Brewer was injured when he jumped 30 feet from a jail wall to the sidewalk during the escape. After he was arrested Wednesday he was taken to the Helene Fuld Medical Center in Trenton where was treated in the emergency room, according to Mercer County spokeswoman Robin Williams.

Brewer was taken to New Jersey State Prison in Trenton after he was treated, officials said.

The bail bondsman called the newspaper on Brewer`s behalf and the escaped prisoner then got on the phone, according to The Times managing editor Pete Callas.

"He said he was tired of running," Callas said.

Brewer and the bail bondsman arrived at the newspaper in a sport-utility vehicle.

"When he got here we called the cops and the cavalry came running after that," Callas said.

Brewer told the newspaper he was in Trenton the entire time after his escape. A task force of local, state and federal authorities was searching for him.

"He said, `I`m hurt. I can`t do this,"` Callas said.

Brewer was scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 14 to up to 90 years in prison for the 1998 murder. He was convicted on June 24 of shooting Andrew Powell to death during the street robbery.

As a juvenile, Brewer was found guilty of murder in the late 1970s.

Brewer was not discovered missing until nearly 14 hours after he scaled the wall along a blind spot in the jail`s recreation yard last Thursday morning and climbed on top of the roof. Removing his orange jumpsuit to leave just a gray, prison-issued sweat suit, Brewer jumped about 30 feet to the sidewalk near the visitors entrance, injuring his ankle.

Officials said Brewer stayed faced down on the sidewalk and told guards he had tripped, aggravated an old football injury and was in intense back pain.

An ambulance was sent to the prison, where seven or eight corrections officers, including a deputy warden and a shift commander, gathered around Brewer. After ambulance personnel secured a neck collar and a backboard to Brewer, he covered his face while he was rolled over, as if in pain.

Brewer then slipped out of the emergency room shortly after the ambulance took him to a Trenton hospital.

He wasn`t discovered missing at the jail until a late headcount that night. Prison Warden Dennis Cunningham refused to discuss why Brewer`s absence wasn`t noticed earlier.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Author: 6 ABC - Action News