I did see the remake. To be honest, I was nearly completely drunk (I saw it at the Alamo Drafthouse, where they will serve you beer while you watch exploitation films - it's like heaven) so my memory is questionable. But I thought the last scene (the film of the cops checking out the scene of the crime) had the cops going down into the basement, being surprised by Leatherface and apparently dying as we heard a chainsaw and saw a freeze-frame of Leatherface.
Since we started talking about it I did some research and haven't been able to find any old newspaper articles or whatever referring to a chainsaw serial killer in Austin. I did find an article (which I posted on my web site) where a Texas historian is interviewed about the Hewitt subject... check it out
here. I have access to Lexus/Nexis and the archives of the Austin-American Statesman and could not find any references to "Hewitt" and "chainsaw" or "Hewitt" and "murder" or "Hewitt" and "serial killer".
I'm not trying to call bull$hit on you or anything, or start some sort of stupid flame war. It's just that lots of movies are using the 'based on a true story' tack as a publicity stunt. This technique recently goes back to the Blair Witch Project but really started with the movie Snuff. So please don't take this as an attack.
I'm just interested in what evidence you do have, because it would be a cool story if it were real. So you said your research did find something out about a Hewitt story. What did you find out and where did you find it?
peace-