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Gregory Brewer pleads guilty to Warren aggravated murder and gets 20 years to life
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Gregory S. Brewer apparently entered the home of Dominic Bufano last Aug. 21 on friendly terms but left as Bufano’s killer.
When approached by a detective several days later, he admitted he had stabbed Bufano to death in the basement of Bufano’s home, said Chris Becker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor.
Bufano, 55, was found dead at the house he shared with his elderly mother on Bingham Avenue Northwest. She called police at 7:25 p.m. because she could hear a “disturbance” in the basement.
Brewer, 50, who has been to prison several times in the past on drug charges, pleaded guilty in common pleas court on Tuesday before Judge Andrew Logan to aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and tampering with evidence, and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
Becker said he doesn’t know how Brewer and Bufano knew each other, only that they did know each other.
Brewer apparently did not break into the home because there was no sign of a break-in, Becker said.
Police recovered good physical evidence in the case — a Nike hat Brewer wore and the murder weapon — but the work of Warren Police Detective Wayne Mackey also broke the case open, Becker said.
Mackey took phone numbers from Bufano’s cellphone and used them to find the Facebook page of a man who was pictured with a woman Mackey knew as an employee of a local coffee shop.
The woman told Mackey her boyfriend had taken Gregory Brewer to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, but he hadn’t shown up for several days. He also wore a Nike hat all the time, she said.
Within three hours, Mackey had found Brewer, and Brewer admitted killing Bufano with a knife he brought with him, though he argued that he killed Bufano in self-defense because Bufano had a gun, Becker said.
Brewer took two prescription bottles of pain killers from Bufano and fled, Becker said. Bufano had a legal prescription for the pain pills because he had a broken ankle that was in a cast and he was using a walker, Becker said.
The Nike hat police found had Brewer’s DNA on it, and the knife, which was found in a neighbor’s yard nearby, had Bufano’s blood on it, Becker said.
Brewer went to prison in 1998 and 2005 for drug possession and in 2000 for illegal possession of drug documents.
Court records indicate Bufano had worked in maintenance at a Tod Avenue Northwest nursing home for at least five years in the early 2000s. His obituary said he also worked as a melt-shop laborer with the former Copperweld Steel Corp. 12 years.