In the shadowy confines of a Las Vegas storage unit, investigators stumbled upon an unsettling discovery that sent shivers through the community. Responding to reports of a pervasive foul odor, detectives unearthed a gruesome scene: a severely decomposed body hidden inside a large trash can, meticulously wrapped in plastic and sealed with duct tape.

“It was unlike anything I had ever encountered in my career,” shared Las Vegas Police Detective David Mesinar with Oxygen’s Snapped. “It was a horrifying method of concealing… someone after death.”

The storage unit was linked to Brookey Lee West, a woman whose life was marked by a turbulent past and a fraught relationship with her mother, Christine Smith. This connection added layers of complexity to the investigation.

The discovery, made on February 5, 2001, was further shrouded in mystery with the presence of books on satanism, black magic, and witchcraft found alongside the remains, deepening the chilling narrative surrounding the case.

Along with the body, discovered Feb. 5, 2001, detectives found books on satanism, black magic and witchcraft, only adding to the chilling mystery.

As defense attorney Scott Coffee remarked, “You see those sorts of books and, you know, monsters come out from underneath the bed.”

Brookey Lee West Has Dysfunctional Childhood

Although most of the remains recovered from the trash can were liquified, the coroner was able to identify the body as the 62-year-old Smith through dental records. However, it was impossible to determine a cause of death.

Investigators set out to learn more about the mother-daughter duo and discovered they had a complicated past. 

Smith married LeRoy Smith—a police officer and known white supremacist drawn to the occult—and the couple had two children, Brookey and Travis. 

But when the marriage hit the rocks, Smith began an affair with a married man.

“She fell madly in love with him and overtime realized that she’d been bamboozled, that he had no intention of leaving his wife and that he was just using Christine for sex,” explained a former reporter for The Las Vegas Review-Journal Glenn Puit. “She asked to meet him at a bar. The man showed up, sat down, Christine pulled out a shotgun and shot him at point blank range.” 

The man survived, but Smith was sentenced to two years in prison for the crime. 

When she was released, she learned that her two children were living under state sponsored care. She and her estranged husband reunited and retrieved their children. 

“Christine basically taught Brookey how to be a criminal,” Puit recounted. “They become shoplifters and swindlers and grifters and so this was Brookey’s role model.”

As an adult, West pursued a career in technology, becoming a successful technical writer and splitting her time between homes in California and Las Vegas. By 1997, she had moved full-time to Las Vegas, where she lived with her mom.

Friends Describe Volatile Mother-Daughter Relationship

Investigators tracked down Smith’s last known address to a Las Vegas property. Although West’s name had also been on the lease, she wasn’t there. While inside the apartment, authorities were able to find the duct tape used to wrap the can and the storage unit key.

Authorities also learned that West had been collecting her mother’s social security payments, despite her death. 

They learned from friends and neighbors that the dysfunctional dynamic between the women had continued into adulthood—although many now saw West as the one with the control in the relationship.

“Some days you thought that they loved each other dearly,” Smith’s friend Alice Wilsey previously told Snapped. “And other days, you thought they hated each other.” 

Smith was last seen sometime around February of 1998. West allegedly told her neighbors that her missing mother had moved to Texas to be with her brother. 

Shortly after investigators left the apartment, they learned that West had returned. They got a vehicle description from her landlord and pulled her over as she was driving. Although West insisted her mother had died of natural causes, she was arrested for her murder.

Brookey Lee West’s Husband is Shot to Death

Detectives soon learned that Smith wasn’t the only family member to die under suspicious circumstances. West’s husband Howard Simon St. John was found dead along the side of the road in the Sequoia National Forest on June 6, 1994.

He’d been shot multiple times and, much like in Smith’s case, had a plastic bag over his head. 

Authorities believed he had been killed at a separate location about 12 to 24 hours before his body was discovered. 

“Howard St. John had been shot multiple times in the back,” retired prosecutor Frank Coumou said. “Either he was running away in fear for his life, or he was completely shocked by surprise.”

St. John, a man who struggled with substance abuse, met West when she was bringing her mom to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The pair had a whirlwind romance, also marked by violence. 

About two weeks before his death, West shot St. John in the neck during a domestic violence incident. Although she was initially charged, the charges against her were ultimately dropped and she maintained that she had acted in self-defense.

Although she was considered a prime suspect in St. John’s subsequent murder, investigators did not find enough evidence to tie her to the crime and she was never charged.