Body found in burned house

Victim of Holly Springs fire not yet identified; transient accused of arson, murder

HOLLY SPRINGS -- When firefighters found the charred body of a man in the back of burning house in the dark of Sunday morning, police began hunting for a killer.

Not more than 14 hours later, police got a tip that led them to James Edward Brewington Jr., a 34-year-old electrician.

Police arrested Brewington, a transient who had bounced between houses in a residential strip on Sunset Lake Road, and charged him with first-degree murder by committing arson. Holly Springs Police Chief John Herring said the case was not a random act of violence.

The missing piece of the puzzle is the name of a man so severely burned police need a medical examiner to identify him. Police think the victim is a man named Jaimie.

Eva Kearse, the former owner of the home, said a young man in his 20s, named Jaimie, had settled into the home several months ago. Kearse would stop in occasionally to pick up day-care equipment she had stored there after selling the property to Brian Barber, a Wake County insurance company owner. Jaimie worked for Barber, Kearse said, and moved in to the Sunset Lake Road home after moving out of his old roommate's place.

Barber declined to comment until a medical examiner confirms the identity of the victim.

Brewington, whose father lives down the road, had stayed at 5145 Sunset Lake Road during the past few months but had moved out recently, said Mark Andrews, spokesman for the town of Holly Springs.

Jaimie was kind and quiet, Kearse said, and had just started to fix up the place, painting some of the rooms inside.

The young tenant tended to keep to himself, Kearse recalled, settling in on nights and weekends to watch basketball games on television. Most neighbors along the street being encroached by new retail stores had never laid eyes on the resident of the house.

A truck for Barber's insurance company was parked in front of the house Sunday; police cruisers and ambulances were parked around it. The fire erupted about 2:30 a.m. and soon gutted the one-story home, according to Andrews. The limbs of slender pine trees around the residence had burned from the flames.

On Sunday, Brewington's father, also named James, knew police were looking for his son but didn't know why. He hadn't seen his son in a while but had talked to him on the telephone the night before.

"The last time he talked to me, he said that he loved me and that was it," James Brewington Sr. said.

The younger Brewington has had brushes with the law before. He spent time in prison for assaulting women. He is on probation for possessing drug paraphernalia. Last Thursday, Brewington was due in court to answer an assault with a deadly weapon charge, according to criminal records. He didn't show.

A pathologist is expected to begin work today trying to figure out who the burned man is; the doctor will also try to determine exactly how the man died.

(News researcher Becky Ogburn contributed to this report.)