Crime and Public Safety

These crimes occurred during the holiday break, a time of year when many of the University of Texas area's residents are out of town. The community was deeply shaken by news of the murder and attacks, and with the suspect thought still at large, it remained on edge through the month of January. As news spread, the half-empty campus neighborhoods soon realized that looking out for one another was more difficult. Neighbor-to-neighbor connections were broken by holiday travel. As UT students returned by the thousands, many learned for the first time that a serial predator had been operating freely in their area.

The community came together within hours after the murder. Volunteers, police officers, and friends of Esme and the other victims saturated Central Austin with thousands of flyers containing a composite sketch of the suspect. The flyers were placed on utility poles and store windows throughout the city and distributed to hundreds of nearby homes. In the days that followed, there were vigils and marches, some planned, some spontaneous, to grieve for the victims and to proclaim that these heinous acts would not be tolerated here. Two large community meetings were held at First English Lutheran Church on 30th Street with hundreds attending. Social and traditional media played a defining role in informing the public of the developments of the case on an hourly basis.

At a news conference on January 26th, James Loren Brown was first identified as the prime suspect in Esme Barrera's murder. It was determined that one of the wanted flyers had been affixed to the suspect's own door. Having nowhere to hide, the prime suspect James Loren Brown committed suicide in his apartment on January 5th. A copy of that flyer bearing his own image was found inside his apartment. APD Chief Art Acevedo said, "The pressure that community placed on that suspect was huge."

On December 20, 2012, the Austin Police Department officially closed the case on Esme Barrera's murder bringing closure to her friends, to her family and to her neighbors. Their findings confirmed that James Loren Brown was responsible for her killing. Brown lived less than 2 blocks away from the murder scene, in a second floor apartment overlooking a pedestrian crosswalk. Two of the victims would have used that crosswalk minutes before the attacks on their way home on the night of the killing. Forensic analysis on a bloody shoe print at the murder scene, and with the fact that the suspect was deceased, enabled the case to be formally closed. James Loren Brown was also connected by DNA to several other attacks in Central Austin, East Austin, and earlier attacks in the summer of 2011 in South Austin.

Communities that organize around a common purpose can achieve remarkable outcomes and become stronger in the process. That strength can be Esme Barrera's legacy. We hope it provides comfort to her friends, the families, and to the courageous young women who survived these senseless attacks. Collapse section...