I’m thinking that this might be 11-year-old Johnny Lee Brewster, missing from St. Petersburg since September 3, 1972. He is believed to be a victim of serial killer Warren Petringelo, who killed Johnny and three other teenaged boys (17-year-old Joseph Gallo, 18-year-old Terry Haskett, and 19-year-old Jefrey Rupe) between May and December 1972.
Johnny is not in ANY missing persons databases, and there is NO information to be found about this serial killer’s crimes outside
newspapers.com and a handful of articles from other archives. I don’t know if he is still missing, but I can’t find any articles saying he was ever found. I’m going to call to confirm that he is still missing and, if so, I’ll try to get him added to NamUs and The Charley Project.
I'm going entirely off the newspaper articles I've been able to find so far, so I apologize if anything here is incorrect. If anyone here has a Pinellas County library card and wants to see if they find anything else on Newsbank or other library sources, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it.
Johnny was last seen on the afternoon of September 3, 1972, when he asked his mother for some money to go see a movie and walked out the door. He was a troubled child; he had run away twice in the past two years and already had several brushes with the law (all minor, nonviolent offenses like shoplifting and petty larceny). The day before his disappearance, he was picked up and fingerprinted by St. Petersburg police for allegedly breaking into a neighbor’s mobile home. When he didn’t return home on September 3, his mother and the police believed that he had run away again, this time because he was scared to face charges of breaking and entering.
In January 1973, 25-year-old Warren Petringelo was arrested after he was caught using Jefrey Rupe’s driver’s license to cash a forged check. He was quickly charged with the murders of Joseph, Terry, and Jefrey, all of whom were found murdered in separate locations around southern St. Petersburg. A search of his room uncovered a pair of handcuffs and multiple articles of clothing belonging to the dead teenagers. There are few details about how the boys were killed, but all three of them were found nude, and one article states that detectives believe Terry was handcuffed and beaten before his head was forced underwater until he drowned. They also implied that the murders were sexually motivated.
Shortly after the arrest, detectives received information that Petringelo was responsible for Johnny’s disappearance. It is unclear how Johnny's name first came up in the investigation, but he knew both Terry and Petringelo, and all three were frequent customers at Jesse’s Restaurant and Game Room. Petringelo also made statements implicating himself in the child's disappearance.
One of Petringelo’s coworkers, William Seal, told detectives that Petringelo gave him and another coworker, Raymond Roberts, a ride one day in early September. During the drive, Roberts happened to look back and saw the nude body of a deceased 11- or 12-year-old boy, believed to be Johnny Brewster. Roberts yelled that there was a body in the car and Petringelo acted surprised, saying he didn’t know how it got there. He said he was going to get rid of the body, then dropped Seal and Roberts off at Bartlett Park and drove away. Although Petringelo didn’t threaten them, Seal said, they were too afraid to get involved and didn’t tell authorities until after his arrest.
In early January 1973, investigators scoured an overgrown area south of Lake Maggiore Park in St. Petersburg, acting on a lead that Johnny’s body was dumped there. It is unclear if this information came from Petringelo himself or someone else. One investigator said they believed a body was left there at some point, and speculated that alligators may have carried the remains away.
In March 1973, Petringelo pleaded no contest to killing Terry and was sentenced to life in prison. He died in 2015.
