A 39-year-old woman who told North Little Rock police she killed her husband of 11½ years in self-defense pleaded guilty Friday to manslaughter, reduced from first-degree murder, with sentencing scheduled for Aug. 7.
Cheryl Lynn Brewer admitted to the lesser charge for the October 2011 shooting death of Charley Bob Brewer, 30, in an arrangement with prosecutors to leave the sentencing up to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims.
At sentencing, both prosecution and defense will be allowed to present evidence and testimony about what Cheryl Brewer's punishment should be.
She faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on the Class C felony charge, but is eligible for probation.
Cheryl Brewer was scheduled to stand trial Tuesday on the murder charge.
Charley Brewer was the youngest son of Patsy Gayle and Jimmy Doyle Brewer, who run the North Little Rock honky-tonk Jimmy Doyle's Country Club on Maybelline Road just off Interstate 40.
Cheryl and Charley Brewer had two sons who were 6 and 3 when their father was killed. The boys were in the home at the time of the shooting, but police said they did not see the slaying.
At Friday's hearing, deputy prosecutor Jeanna Sherrill told the judge that Charley Brewer had been shot four times by his wife, twice in the chest and twice in the back. Court filings show Cheryl Brewer, who now lives with her mother in Conway, intended to mount a "battered woman" defense at trial.
Her attorneys, Brannon Sloan and Lucas Rowan, had petitioned the court to be allowed to present testimony from witnesses interviewed by police who could attest that Charley Brewer had been violent toward his wife and others. The lawyers also asked to be allowed to present testimony about the "cycle of domestic violence." They asked that an expert on battered woman syndrome be allowed to testify on Cheryl Brewer's behalf.
On behalf of the defense, DeValls Bluff psychologist Charles Spellmann reported that Cheryl Brewer had demonstrated behavior consistent with battered woman syndrome. In his evaluation, Spellmann wrote that the shooting occurred after Brewer was "cornered" while she was determined to take herself and the couple's children to a "safe place." She told him her husband had threatened her life and beaten her many times before.
"Her husband attempted to stop her and she shot him," he wrote. "She believed at the time ... that her life was endangered and that she had no option but to use a gun in her defense."
According to an arrest affidavit, Brewer called police to the couple's home on U.S. 165, telling dispatchers that she had just shot her husband. She met the responding officers outside the home and they found the man dead inside.
She told detectives that Charley Brewer had been screaming that he was going to kill her and that he had just scattered everything off the countertops in the kitchen, saying "now the f** counters are clean."
She said her husband entered their bedroom where she was, and she pointed a gun at him, with Charley Brewer daring her to shoot while threatening to kill her, the affidavit states. She said she had gotten the gun from the nightstand, already cocked and loaded.
He went toward her and she fired, Cheryl Brewer told police. Her husband took a few steps back, then started toward her again so she fired again, knocking him back and to the floor. But he tried to get up again, and "I just closed my eyes and squeezed until it was quiet," then she called police, she told detectives.
She said Charley Brewer had flown into a rage over a missing TV remote controller and had gotten angry with their youngest son, who was 3. He had tried to beat the boy with a belt, but she had gotten between them so he struck her five or six times, she told police, saying she had decided to leave him.
An autopsy showed Charley Brewer had been shot in the right upper chest by a bullet that punctured his lung after piercing his left hand. Another bullet lodged in his right collarbone while a third was fired into his right upper back and went through his skull into his brain, with the fourth going through the middle of his back and through the right lobe of his lungs, court records show.
Examiners at the state Crime Laboratory found gunshot residue on the back of his shirt that showed at least one of the rear gunshots had been fired from between 2 feet and 4 feet away, according to court records.
Metro on 06/21/2014