Gay Chicago Man Kills Wife For Life Insurance Payout

A Chicago man reportedly plotted with his brother to kill his wife for her life insurance policy after he realized he was no longer in love with her because he is gay.

Darron Brewer, 26, and his 23-year-old brother Dujuan Powe planned to kill 22-year-old Kenyatae Coller-Brewer after she received a life insurance policy of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from the National Guard.

According to Cook County Assistant State Attorney Jeff Allen, in October 2009, Powe was supposed to surprise his sister-in-law at home and strangle her to death. When she came out of the bathroom after he arrived at the home, Powe had, what Allen believed was, consensual sex with her. Coller-Brewer then told her husband that his brother raped her, and Powe and Brewer then hatched a plan to fake a carjacking which would end with the young mother being murdered.

According to Allen and Brewer’s defense attorney, Rebecca Washlow, the marriage was coming to end because Brewer was gay and had a boyfriend.

On the night she was murdered, Coller-Brewer picked up her husband and their two children from Chicago’s South Side after she left work. Brewer ended up driving as his wife slept in the passanger seat. Brewer then allegedly took a detour to a gas station where Powe was wearing a Ghostface mask. Powe then forced Coller-Brewer into the trunk of the car at gunpoint and shot her twice in the head. 

A nearby surveillance camera captured the whole thing.

The day after the murder, Brewer made several phone calls to the police, an auto pound, and the morgue attempting to “find” his wife. But he failed to mention that he had been caught on camera during the “carjacking.” Later, he found his car and called 911, who discovered Coller-Brewer’s body in the trunk. Brewer confessed to police but said he was trying to protect his brother, whom he feared his wife would say raped her.

Washlow said Brewer believed Powe and his wife were going to have a “conversation” about the affair, and that he was in “deep denial” after the carjacking.

“Darron did not kill his wife,” Washlow said. “And Darron did not plan for his brother to do that, either.”

Powe’s defense attorney, Brian Walsh, said prosecutors can’t prove a case against his client, and pointed the finger at Brewer.

“Darron Brewer had the motive, had the opportunity, and had the plan to kill his wife,” Walsh said.