Charleston Gazette, September 12
BIG CREEK — When Megan Williams was kept against her will in a shed beside a Logan County mobile home, it may not have been her first time at the residence...[neighbor] Krysti Sumpter said that Williams has been to the Brewster residence before. She said Tuesday that about a month ago, Williams ran down the hill from the mobile home about 10 p.m. Williams said she had been threatened with a gun, and asked Sumpter for help.
“She said she needed to go to Kentucky. I said I couldn’t drive her that far but I offered to take her to the police. She said she needed to get her stuff,” Sumpter said. Williams went back to the house and gathered her things, Sumpter said, and she took her to the Logan detachment of the State Police. Sumpter said she told police about the incident when they found Williams on Saturday. Logan County sheriff’s deputies could not be reached late Tuesday to confirm that.
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Megan Williams remained at Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital on Tuesday evening. Her mother, Carmen Williams, told the Gazette on Monday that two people who Megan thought were her friends drove her to the mobile home in Logan County. Carmen Williams said Monday her daughter has some “mental issues.” The woman’s father, Matthew Williams said his daughter took some special education classes at Capital High School. She did not graduate, he said.
Megan was feeling much better on Tuesday than she was on Monday, he said. “She’s laughing, she’s talking. She is doing much better,” he said.
Outside the Brewster mobile home Tuesday afternoon was a shopping cart full of beer cans. More beer cans and cigarette butts littered the yard. On the front porch was a pair of sandals.
Phillip Mann, owner of Mann’s Used Cars in Big Creek, said he wasn’t surprised that the Brewsters were allegedly involved in the crime. And he wouldn’t be surprised if the people who took her to the Brewsters’ home live close by. “I’m not sure who it could be with as many dopeheads as live up and down this road,” he said. “There is always something going on in Big Creek.”
Court records indicate that all six of the suspects had been arrested previously on a variety of charges, many of which involve violence. Frankie Brewster served five years in prison after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and wanton endangerment involving a firearm in 1996. Brewster shot and killed Polly Tomblin Ferrell, 84. The two were living together, along with Bisha Tomblin, who was Ferrell’s son and the father of Brewster’s son Bobby. At Frankie Brewster’s sentencing, Tomblin said he had known her for 17 years, and she would never have intentionally hurt his mother. “Miss Brewster was a woman who was completely out of her mind [at the time of the shooting],” he wrote in his statement. “She didn’t know where she was at or what she had done.”
In 1998, Tomblin was shot to death by his 14-year-old son. The teenager was not named at the time, but several local residents said Tuesday that Bobby Ray Brewster was the shooter. In March of this year, Bobby Ray Brewster was charged with brandishing a deadly weapon and obstructing an officer. Three months later, he was charged with domestic assault, domestic battery and giving false information to State Police, all misdemeanors.
Combs spent 3-1/2 months in jail in late 2006 after being arrested on charges that included daytime burglary, unlawful/malicious wounding and domestic battery, court records indicate.
In 2001, Karen Burton was arrested on charges including battery of a police officer, assault of a police officer, disorderly conduct and assault. Earlier this year, she was charged with public intoxication, trespassing and disorderly conduct.
Messer and Alisha Burton were indicted in January on charges of burglary and first-degree robbery for allegedly breaking into a Barkers Fork woman’s home in August 2006. Logan Circuit Judge Roger Perry dismissed those charges in April because the alleged victim would not cooperate with prosecutors. Both Messer and Alisha Burton have been charged multiple times with domestic battery.
Another murder may have happened at Brewster’s trailer a couple of years ago. In 2005, Joshua J. Stowers, 30, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in March in the stabbing death of Joseph L. Dingess, 35. Television reports at the time said the two men were brothers-in-law. Stowers is serving a 20-year sentence at Mount Olive Correctional Center. Some local residents said Dingess was killed in Frankie Brewster’s trailer, but others said it happened in a nearby trailer.
Johnny Meade remembers selling hats to Frankie Brewster back in the 1980s. The pastor of a local church, Meade has lived in the area for years. He didn’t realize until Tuesday that the Brewsters had been living in the area. “She didn’t seem like she was all there all the time,” he said of Frankie Brewster. “Her mentality was not up to par.”
Meade said what happened to Megan Williams has shook the small community. “It’s just awful. It makes you sick,” he said.