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Brookey Lee West leans back in her chair during her preliminary hearing Monday. Authorities say she killed her mother and disposed of her body in a trash can. Next to West is her attorney, Scott Coffee of the Clark County Public Defender's Office. Photo by Jeff Scheid.

Tuesday, April 10, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Hearing focuses on witchcraft

'Satanic Bible' found near can holding skeleton, investigator says

The criminal case of Brookey Lee West was bizarre enough last February, when authorities accused West of sealing her mother's body in a trash can.

But on Monday, during West's preliminary hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court, a witness revealed that a series of seemingly sinister books -- from the "Satanic Bible" to "The Geography of Witchcraft" -- were found near the putrefied remains of West's mother.

West's attorney, Clark County Deputy Public Defender Scott Coffee, denied after the close of proceedings Monday that his client is a witch, a Satanist -- or a killer.

He said the literature had nothing to do with the death of West's 68-year-old mother, Christine M. Smith.

"We had witch hunts in Salem several hundred years ago," Coffee said. "This shouldn't turn into one."

Nonetheless, the connotation resulting from testimony about the ''Satanic Bible'' and other literature adorned with pentagrams was clear in the courtroom -- that, in the eyes of authorities, the 1998 death of Smith was evil.

The investigation began Feb. 5 when customers of the Canyon Gate Mini Storage, 8055 W. Sahara Ave., noticed a noxious smell coming from a storage unit.

The business' general manager, William Unruh, tried to contact West because she was renting the unit, but Unruh said he was unable to make contact.

Unruh then cut off a lock on the storage unit and rolled back the door.

"That's when the smell hit us," Unruh said. "I said, 'This one's not for us. This one's for the police.' "

Police officers found a 56-gallon trash can, a series of boxes and other items inside the unit.

Joseph Matvay, a crime scene analyst supervisor for Las Vegas police, said the smell was traced to the trash can. Inside was the badly decomposed body of Smith, who was last seen three years earlier.

All that was left in the trash can was Smith's skeleton and a gooey, waxy substance that was once Smith's remains.

Clark County Medical Examiner Gary Telgenhoff said a plastic bag was tied tightly around the skeleton's face and nose.

The body was so badly decomposed that an autopsy could not determine a cause or manner of death, Telgenhoff said.

"I did not have sufficient material left to say this person was suffocated, strangled, or to say what had happened to her," Telgenhoff said.

Telgenhoff also said he could not say whether Smith was dead before she was placed in the trash can.

Matvay said the trash can was tightly wrapped with a cellophane-type material and duct tape. The crime scene analyst said he recovered West's fingerprint from the plastic material.

Inside boxes next to the trash can, Matvay said he found several books pertaining to black magic, witchcraft, Satanism and "other things of that nature."

Under questioning from Coffee, Matvay acknowledged that a traditional Bible and a book called "Jews For Jesus" were also found at the scene and that he could not connect the literature with Smith's death.

Coffee insinuated during his questioning of Telgenhoff and other witnesses that his client's mother could have died a natural death.

One of Smith's neighbors, Alice Wilsey, said she last saw Smith in February 1998 at their apartment complex on West Sahara.

At the time, Wilsey said, West told her she was going to be moving her mother to live with West's brother in San Jose, Calif.

"Brook just didn't want to be with her mother anymore," Wilsey said. "She was glad she finally found a way to get her mother out of her life."

Smith isn't the first family member of West's to die amid suspicious circumstances. One of her ex-husbands, Howard Simon St. John, was found shot to death in California on June 6, 1994.

No one has ever been charged in the slaying.

West's preliminary hearing is expected to resume Thursday afternoon.

Las Vegas Justice of the Peace William Jansen will then decide whether West will go to trial on a murder charge.