Brookey Lee West

Last updated

Brookey Lee West
Born (1953-06-28) June 28, 1953 (age 71)
United States
Criminal status Incarcerated
Spouse
Howard Simon St. John
​
​
(m. 1994;body discovered 1994)​
Conviction(s) First degree murder
Criminal penalty Life imprisonment without parole
Details
Victims1–3
CountryUnited States
State(s) Nevada
Date apprehended
September 8, 2001
Imprisoned atCoffee Creek Correctional Facility, Wilsonville, Oregon

Brookey Lee West (born June 28, 1953) is a convicted American murderer who is currently sentenced to life imprisonment at the Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center for the murder of her mother, Christine Smith in February 1998. Though officially convicted of one murder she is suspected to have killed 3 people including her brother and husband. She was also suspected in the attempted murder of Diane Smith. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life

West grew up with her father, Leroy Smith, who taught her witchcraft, Satanism and violence from a young age. Her mother, Christine Smith, had numerous affairs and often neglected West and her brother, Travis Smith. [2]

Criminal career

In 1993, Travis Smith disappeared. Though a body was never found, West was accused of having connections to Travis's disappearance after it was discovered that a man had checked into Santa Clara Valley Medical Center using Travis's social security number and the bill was sent to an address where West was residing. [3]

In 1994, West married Howard Simon St. John. In May of that year, Simon St. John filed a spousal abuse claim after West allegedly assaulted Simon with a .32 handgun. The charges were dropped later that month. Two weeks later his body was found near Lower Coffee Camp in Springville, California. The cause of death was determined to be gunshot wounds. [4]

While Brookey's father, Leroy Smith, was dying of cancer in 1996, West was suspected of assaulting Diane Smith with a stun gun.

In 1998, Christine Smith, West's elderly mother had been suffering from alcoholism and disappeared in February of that year. West claimed she sent her mother to live with her brother in California. Police had initially believed the story until February 5, 2001, when Christine's body was discovered in a garbage can by a Las Vegas storage unit. West explained that her mother had died of natural causes and in a panic West stuffed her mother's body in a garbage can.

West was arrested on September 5, 2001. Neal Haskell, a forensic entomologist at Saint Joseph's College suspected foul play due to the lack of blow flies on the corpse. Instead coffin flies were found on the corpse which meant the body was either put into the garbage can immediately after death or while the person was still alive. The prosecution determined that West killed her mother in order to benefit from Christine's monthly $1,000 Social Security checks. West was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment at Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center. [5]

In 2004, West requested a retrial, maintaining her claim that her mother had died of natural causes. The prosecution argued that "there was ample evidence to convict West of first-degree murder". [6] In 2012, West attempted to escape from Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center by walking out the front entrance. She was caught and reprimanded. [7]

West was covered in the 6th season of American true-life crime television series, Deadly Women . She was also featured in the 5th season of Snapped .

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sante Kimes</span> American murderer, slaver, and criminal (1934–2014)

Sante Kimes also known as the Dragon Lady, was an American murderer, con artist, robber, serial arsonist, and possible serial killer who was convicted of two murders, as well as robbery, forgery, violation of anti-slavery laws and numerous other crimes. Many of these crimes were committed with the assistance of her son, Kenneth Kimes. They were tried and convicted together for the murder of Irene Silverman, along with 117 other charges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Ridgway</span> American serial killer (born 1949)

Gary Leon Ridgway is an American serial killer known as the Green River Killer. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders committed between the early 1980s and late 1990s. As part of his plea bargain, another conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the second-most prolific serial killer in United States history according to confirmed murders.

Margaret Rudin is an American woman convicted of the December 1994 murder of her husband, Las Vegas real estate magnate Ronald Rudin. She was incarcerated at Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

Craig Michael Titus is an American convicted murderer. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping and arson in the death on December 14, 2005 of 28-year-old Melissa James, a personal assistant to him and his wife, Kelly Ryan, in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was sentenced in 2008 to 21 to 55 years in prison.

Lemuel Warren Smith is an American convicted serial killer who was the first convict to kill an on-duty female corrections officer. Smith was already in prison for the murders of at least five people when he murdered prison guard Donna Payant at Green Haven Correctional Facility in 1981.

Kelly Ann Ryan is an American known for being convicted of arson, and assault and battery with a deadly weapon, as an accessory to the December 14, 2005 murder of Melissa James. The young woman had been working as a personal assistant to Ryan and her husband Craig Titus at their home in Las Vegas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dayton Leroy Rogers</span> American killer

Dayton Leroy Rogers is an American serial killer who has been tied to the murders of at least eight women. He preferred "street" women, usually addicts, sex workers, and runaways. The bodies of six of the women were found at a dump site located on privately owned forest lands outside Molalla, Oregon, and thus he was dubbed the "Molalla Forest Murderer".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Durousseau</span> American serial killer

Paul Durousseau is an American serial killer who murdered seven young women in the southeastern United States between 1997 and 2003. German authorities suspect he may have also killed several local women when he was stationed there with the United States Army during the early 1990s. Typically, Durousseau would gain the victim's trust, enter the victim's home, tie their hands, rape, then strangle them to death. All of his known victims were young, single African-American women.

The Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center is a state prison for women in North Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. All custody levels are housed there. It is operated by the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC). It houses Nevada's female death row.

Kirstin Blaise Lobato is a Nevada woman who was exonerated for the July 2001 murder and mutilation of Duran Bailey, a homeless man from St. Louis who was living in Las Vegas at the time of his death. At her first trial in May 2002, she was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced from 40 to 100 years in prison. In a 2006 retrial, she was convicted of the lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 13 to 45 years. Lobato's case gained significant notoriety due to the publication of new evidence, which some believe points to her innocence of the crime.

Neal Martin Falls was an American suspected serial killer who was shot and killed in self-defense by Heather Saul, a woman in Charleston, West Virginia. Falls had been stopped by police in over twenty states during his life but did not incur any serious criminal charges. Only after his death did police discover evidence possibly tying Falls to other crimes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Devin Howell</span> American serial killer

William Devin Howell is an American serial killer who was convicted of murdering seven women in 2003. He is one of the most prolific serial killers in Connecticut history. In November 2017, while already serving a 15-year prison sentence for manslaughter, he was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences, which he is currently serving at Cheshire Correctional Institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Little</span> American serial killer (1940–2020)

Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people, nearly all women, between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathaniel Burkett</span> American serial killer

Nathaniel Burkett was an American serial killer and rapist who was responsible for at least four murders in Nevada and one in Mississippi between 1978 and 2002. As a result of a DNA breakthrough in 2012, Burkett was charged with three of the murders, after having already been convicted of the other two. He pleaded guilty to the crimes in 2018 and was sentenced to life in prison, but he died just three years later from COVID-19.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnny Blake Peterson</span> American rapist, murderer, and suspected serial killer (1960-1993)

Johnny Blake Peterson was an American rapist, murderer, and suspected serial killer who was posthumously linked via DNA to two murders committed in his native city of Las Vegas, Nevada in 1979 and 1983. He was never considered a suspect in either killing during his lifetime, and died in hospital from an overdose in 1993. Since his identification in 2021, authorities have announced that they are investigating him in at least five other murders in the Las Vegas area, beginning in the late 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman Flowers</span> American serial killer

Norman Keith Flowers is an American serial killer who killed three women by beating and strangling them in their Las Vegas apartments from March to May 2005. DNA left at each crime scene eventually linked him to the killings and he was arrested. Flowers was tried in 2008 and convicted, receiving a life sentence without parole. He entered an alford plea for the remaining charges in 2011 and received two more life sentences.

Florence Alberta Shilling McClure was an American activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelsey Turner</span> American convicted murderer

Kelsey Nichole Turner is an American convicted murderer and former adult model. She has appeared in magazines such as Playboy, Maxim, and OneTen.

The Nassau County serial murders were a series of murders of young women committed between 1984 and 1989 in Nassau County, New York. All the victims had been involved in prostitution or had drug addictions, and the perpetrator, a possible serial killer, was never apprehended.

References

  1. ↑ Sarah Sanchez (September 12, 2016). Girl Monster: The True Story of Brookey Lee West. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN   978-1-5376-2369-6.
  2. 1 2 Glenn Puit (2005). Witch: The True Story of Las Vegas' Most Notorious Female Killer. Berkley Books. ISBN   978-0-425-20719-2.
  3. ↑ Glenn Puit (2012). Witch: The Bone Chilling True Story of US Murderer Brookey Lee West. Ebury Publishing. ISBN   978-0-09-194728-6.
  4. ↑ Spencer, D.C. (February 24, 2001). "Body in Nev. turns attention to Tulare Cty". Porterville Recorder. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  5. ↑ Svoboda, Elizabeth (May 11, 2009). "The Truth, Revealed by Bugs: The Case of Brookey Lee West". The New York Times . Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  6. ↑ Pordum, Matt (September 21, 2004). "Convicted killer may get new trial". Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  7. ↑ Mower, Lawrence (July 20, 2012). "Murderer attempts escape from women's prison in North Las Vegas". Las Vegas Review-Journal. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.