Killer Thinks He Got Away – Doesn’t Know She Escaped the Box | The Case of Brook Weber
– Pay attention to the man in this video. as he’s hiding the most disturbing secret. – Hello, Lori. I guess it’s a real mess, isn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to go like that. I don’t know what to tell you. – On August 13th 1996, Gary Simmons enters an electronics store in Mobile, Alabama. He records himself in broad daylight in front of onlooking customers and staff, and yet no one knows that he’s actually a killer on the run.
– I never think about the consequences of what I do until after it’s done, but that’s what happens when you cross the line. You pay for it. I guess it’s time. I love you. – That same day, just 35 miles away, missing 18-year-old Brook Weber is found alive outside this house in Moss Point, Mississippi. When police arrive, Brook is hysterical, screaming the words, “They shot him, they shot him.
” But when they get into the house, the only thing they find is this human-sized box. As police start looking around the property, they quickly make their way into the bayou behind the house. This is where they make the most shocking discovery. Floating across the surface, they find 88 pieces of human remains.
The most grisly crime the state of Mississippi has ever seen will remain a mystery until one 18-year-old girl who escaped will come back from the dead to take down the killer, she will forever be known as “The Girl in the Butcher’s Box.” The year is 1996 in Houston, Texas, 21-year-old, Jeffrey Wolfe lives a happy life with his dad, Paskiel.
– He was just a good kid. He loved dogs, he loved football, he loved motorcycles. He was an All-American guy, you know, he really was. – August 11th, Jeffrey comes home with a surprise guest, a new girlfriend he’s excited to introduce to his father. – I was sitting at the house and they drove up and introduced her.
“Dad, this is my new girlfriend, Brook.” She was a beautiful young girl. – Jeffrey and Brook have only known each other for a few weeks, but Paskiel can tell his son is crazy about this girl. The couple already planned a vacation away together, and the following day, they’re going to drive all the way to Mississippi.
On August 12th, Jeffrey wakes up early to go and pick up Brook. – He hugged and kissed me bye. And that’s the last time I heard from him. – It’s August 13th, the following day in the early hours of the morning the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department receives a disturbing 911 call. The caller claims that a young lady came banging on their front door, that she was holding a butcher knife while she was begging for help.
When police arrive at the scene, they find 18-year-old Brook completely in shock. While police try asking her questions, they’re unable to get any answers from her. All she keeps repeating over and over is, “They shot him, they shot him.” When Brook points to the house across the street, police quickly make their way over.
But once inside, they find that no one is there. The house is immaculate. There’s no trace of struggle, no blood, nothing out of place. But what they do find is a box. While Brook is taken to the Sheriff’s Department, officers continue their search of the property looking for the man Brook claims was shot here, but something feels wrong.
The house is located at the edge of a bayou, and in one of the boats, they find drops of blood. Could the killer have disposed of the body in the river? Not too far from the dock, one officer stumbles across an axe. When he takes a closer look, he finds the blade is covered in blood. Gary Simmons, the man police believe to be responsible for the murder is nowhere to be found.
For now, Brook is the only one who can shed light on what happened in that house, and she’s the only one who knows what the box was really meant for. Her story begins on the morning of August 12th 1996. – Back in 1996, I was 18 years old. Jeff and I had just met. We were still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship, where everything was perfect.
He was real charming, real charming and sweet and cute. It was a business trip. We were gonna make a fun time out of it, but we were going to collect money. – Brook and Jeffrey make the six hour road trip to Mississippi. When they arrive at Gary’s house, the sun has already set. – I could tell something wasn’t right.
It was dark, and we pull up and there’s not a porch light on. So that kind of was like, “Why doesn’t he have the porch light on?” You know, “He knows we’re coming.” And that man, Gary Simmons, he was sitting on the steps and he looked kinda creepy to me, but Jeff had told me that these were his friends, so I didn’t question it.
I wish I would’ve asked questions that day. – Gary invites them inside and offers them a drink. As they’re standing around the kitchen, Brook takes a seat at the nearby table. She lets the guys talk about business, which doesn’t concern her at all. Although she isn’t paying them much attention, she can tell the conversation is friendly.
There is no hostility, no tension, nothing. – I mean, I thought that they were just gonna have a discussion and then it would be done. That’s when I heard the gunshots. – When Brook looks up, she sees Jeffrey is shot through the chest, his blood splattered all over the blinds, his body falling to the floor, and behind him, a young man holding a gun.
Brook had no idea there was anyone else inside the house. – I was like, “Oh, f*** I’m gonna die!” I was so scared. – Gary hurries over to Brook, grabs her in a bear hug and carries her to the other room. He then hogties her, gags her and locks her inside this box. – It was the scariest moment of my life. I didn’t know what they were going to do to me, and that’s when Gary came around.
He took me out. And, I was basically told how well I performed sexually determined if I lived or if I died. Then he r***d me. And put me back in the box. It was dark, and you’re just sitting there alone with your own thoughts and fears, just praying for a way out. I didn’t think I was getting outta that box. – August 14th, 24 hours after Brook has been kidnapped, a woman named Lori receives a disturbing package at her work.
Inside is a VHS showing Gary Simmons recording himself at a mall. – Hello, Lori. I guess it’s a real mess, isn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to go like that. I guess it’s time. I love you. – The truth is Lori Simmons is Gary’s wife and while it may look like Gary is in a loving relationship with her, Lori is distraught to hear from her husband again.
That’s because the horrors that happened in the house at Moss Point started six years earlier with Lori. – The house still creeps me out. And I have not set foot in there in like 27 years. – Lori’s story starts on August 11th 1990, six years earlier, almost to the day when she and Gary are getting married. Lori met Gary about 10 months after her first divorce.
She has two children from her previous marriage, and Gary is the groundskeeper at her kids’ daycare. The day of their wedding, they move in together in this house. – Gary had told me early on in our relationship that he loved to write short stories. – At first, Lori thinks Gary is a creative soul, something she finds endearing.
In his office, he keeps over 50 binders filled with stories. One day her curiosity gets the best of her, and she opens one to read. What she found was deeply unsettling. Every single story written in those binders is about a woman taken captive as a sex slave. – I remember reading these stories, and I don’t know if he let me read that to gauge my reaction or my interest in what he had written.
I told him, “That’s not pleasure, that’s torture.” And he says, “Well, these are my fantasies.” He said, “I have secrets you know nothing about.” – Lori doesn’t want to believe the man she just married has a twisted mind. So she tries to put it aside and dismiss it. But the real dark side of Gary has not yet shown itself until one day he tries to bring these stories to life with her.
The first time Lori starts to notice Gary’s behavior change comes after the birth of their first daughter. – After my daughter was born when he would want to be intimate, I told him, no he can’t, “It’s not time, it’s too soon, you have to wait.” And he said, “That’s not gonna happen.” – That very evening, Gary forces himself on Lori.
– That was the very first time Gary r***d me. – Lori is in shock. She had no idea Gary was capable of that. While she hurries in the shower. No amount of soap and water can take away the filth she now feels. – I wasn’t quite sure on what happened, and I didn’t even know if that was considered r*** because we were married.
– But while she’s trying to make sense of the situation she has gotten into, things are about to get worse. – One of the stories that Gary wrote was about a box, and it was for a person. I was in the kitchen when I heard this noise and this banging. I see he’s got this huge box. – One day, Lori decides to stand up to Gary and confront him.
His reaction is nothing like what she expected. He doesn’t yell, he doesn’t argue. He stays calm and composed. But from one moment to the next, Gary has a hand at her throat, choking her so hard, she passes out. When she comes to, she’s lying in bed, tied by the hands and feet to the bedposts, unable to move.
With Gary standing right beside her, Lori starts to panic. She can’t imagine what’s about to happen. – I asked him, “Let me go, please untie me, I’m not a fan of this.” He told me it was not about me, this was not about me. – He then proceeds to blindfold her. Lori is scared out of her mind. She can hear him walking on the creaking floor slowly taunting her.
He shows no signs of being angry or even upset. Lori starts to feel the coldness of a blade running against her skin. A butcher knife so sharp that if she flinches, she will get cut. Gary traces the outline of her face almost as if he’s planning to peel it off. – And I was petrified. I thought I was dying that night.
This was one of the fantasies that he had written about. If I made a noise, if I twitched or flinched a little bit, it aroused him. He enjoyed the pain and the agony that he was causing. – Lori is holding her breath, not wanting to move, but the stiller she gets, the less he likes it. As she does her best to stay completely still, he rips her blindfold off and tells her, “Well, that’s not fun anymore.
” – He had already played out some of the stories in his books. I did not wanna become any of the other stories. – When Lori goes to the police to tell them about the r*** and torture, they tell her she doesn’t have enough evidence to charge Gary of the crime. – There was no way for me to prove anything that happened.
– Lori tries to get a divorce. She calls a legal aid service asking for advice. She tells them about the sexual abuse explaining what happened, but the answer she gets is devastating. – She told me that in the State of Mississippi, you can’t get divorced when you’re pregnant. I said, “Well, I’m not pregnant.
” – Nevertheless, the State requires Lori to take a pregnancy test in order to proceed filing for divorce. That day, Lori takes the test and finds out she’s pregnant. The thought of living through this for another year is unbearable. – I wanted this to be over, and it wasn’t only me, you know, it was my kids and the danger that I not only put myself in, but I put my children in.
You know, I put people in that I love. – Lori asks for help and reaches out to domestic violence associations. She’s pregnant with three kids, no job, no money, no place to go. All she has is two diaper bags and two suitcases. Finally, they find her an apartment where she won’t have to see Gary anymore. But although Lori and her kids are no longer in harm’s way, Gary is still close with her little brother Timothy.
It’s summer 1996, Timothy comes over to her apartment offering to help. – He had moved in with me for that summer so he could attend to his nephew and nieces to help me out. – One night at around 11:00 PM, Lori and Tim are hanging out in the kitchen after having put the kids down to sleep when suddenly there’s a knock at the door, it’s Gary.
When Tim goes to answer, Gary asks him to go talk outside. – I did not know that they still spoke. I did not know that they even had a relationship. He comes back in. “Gary needs my help.” I said, “You have no business with that man.” – Timothy hugs her and tells her he’ll be back within the hour. But more than four hours later at around 3:30 AM, Lori is concerned because her brother hasn’t come back.
– I called Gary’s house. Gary had an answering machine and I left a message, and then I called Gary’s home again. And then the third time the answering machine didn’t pick up. The phone literally just rang and rang and rang. I literally just put the phone down and I just let it ring. – But what Lori doesn’t know is that there is someone in the house, 18-year-old Brook has been tied up and locked in the box for hours.
She was so exhausted that she fell asleep. When Lori calls Brook is woken up by the phone ringing, – I heard the answering machine come on. And I knew nobody’s there. And I was thinking in my mind, I was like, “If you’re ever gonna get outta here, now’s the time.” – Although she has her hands and feet tied behind her back, Brook does all she can to wiggle herself out.
And as the rope starts to get loose, she’s able to free herself from her bond. In the room, she can hear the phone ringing, but no one answers. She shifts her body onto her knees and pushes against the lid with her back. She summons every ounce of strength in her body, forcing against the metal top until finally it breaks open.
She looks around, but no one is there and the house is completely clean. But Brook doesn’t linger. She grabs a butcher knife left on the table and heads out. – ‘Cause if they were coming in when I was going out, I was gonna gut ’em, period. Because they weren’t gonna kill me, I was not dying that day. – As Brook runs out the front door, she immediately heads down the road looking for help.
The first house she finds is across the street. – And I ran, I ran so fast. About that time, I looked up and Gary Simmons pulled back up at the house. – Brook quickly hides behind a bush on the neighbor’s lawn. She has no idea if Gary has seen her, but she’s afraid, her entire body is shaking, trembling with fear.
She’s convinced that this is it. Gary is going to come back and get her and she’s going to die. Once he gets out of the car, he heads inside of his house. It only takes a few minutes for him to discover that Brook is gone. When he runs out of the house, Brook expects the worst, but instead of going around looking for her, Gary gets back in his car and speeds off.
Brook is finally free. Not long after she knocked on the neighbor’s door, police arrive at the scene and Brook is quickly taken to the Sheriff’s Department. This is where she learns the truth about what happened to Jeffrey’s body. I overheard them talking and they were finding body parts that led to the bayou.
– I was in the bedroom packing my suitcase, and my little brother showed up. He put his arm around me and he said, “They ain’t gonna let you see Jeffrey.” I said, “Ain’t nobody gonna stop me from seeing my son. Nobody.” He said, “Bubba, they cut Jeffrey up in 88-something pieces. They’re looking for his body parts now.
” So I just fell over onto the bed and I cried and I cried and I cried. Why they did that to my boy, I don’t know. I never thought I’d have to bury him. – August 13th. While Gary Simmons is on the run, Timothy Milano returns home to see Lori, but Lori can tell something’s not right with him. – He’s not there, it’s almost like he’s checked out.
I stop and I think, “Oh God, what has happened now? What has Gary done to my family now?” I look at Timmy and he said, “I had to do it, I had to help him because he threatened you and the girls.” The last time I laid my eyes on him was outside my apartment when he was being taken away. – Timothy Milano is the one who shot and killed Jeffrey.
Just a few hours after Brook escaped, he turns himself in. When Jeffrey’s father learns of the arrest, Paskiel is furious because Timothy is not a stranger. He remembers Jeffrey bringing him to the house one time and asking him if Tim could stay with them for a while. And Jeffrey’s father said, “Yes.” – I was sick in my stomach.
I thought I’d done the boy a favor by letting him live in my house for three or four weeks. I washed his clothes, I fed him and put a roof over his head, and I took him to the store a couple of times and he repaid me back by shooting my son seven times in the back and twice in his chest. – Police say the two killed Jeffrey Wolfe of Texas in this house two weeks ago.
– Simmons also was accused of r***** Wolfe’s girlfriend and imprisoning her inside this box. – When Tim is arrested at her home, Lori learns about what happened at her old house in Moss Point and she’s distraught. She still can’t believe that her brother would do such a thing. As for Gary, she doesn’t know where he is or what his intentions are.
All she knows is that Gary committed a horrible crime the day after they were supposed to celebrate their anniversary, and she’s wondering if he’s coming for her next. But the following day, while she’s at work, someone delivers a package addressed to her. When she opens it, she finds a VHS recording of Gary.
– Hello, Lori. I guess it’s a real mess, isn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to go like that. I don’t know what to tell you. To my way of thinking, I didn’t have much of a choice. I mean, I had already taken his money. There’s no excuses. There’s never been an excuse for any of the things that I’ve done. There’s never been any excuses for the way I’ve treated you.
I never think about the consequences of what I do until after it’s done. But that’s what happens when you cross the line. You pay for it. I guess it’s time. I love you. – That same day, Gary Simmons called police to turn himself in. When they arrested him, he was just a few blocks away from Lori’s work. – It’s a murder officials call the most grisly in Jackson County history.
Authorities say, Simmons shot Wolfe, cut up the body and scattered it in a nearby bayou. – October 11th 1996, Gary Simmons and Timothy Milano are indicted for the capital murder of Jeffrey Wolfe but it will take another year before the trial starts. To make sure they’re convicted, prosecutors need Brook’s testimony, but even while he’s in jail, she’s terrified of Gary Simmons.
– I was the only living witness. If something would’ve happened to me, they would’ve probably got away with that. That’s why they tried to have me killed from prison. I never felt safe after that. Ever. – August 25th 1997, one year after the murder, the trial begins. As Brook takes the stand, she’s now just a few feet away from Gary.
The last time she saw him, he was locking her in that box. She knows better than anyone what Gary is capable of. – I was so scared my whole body was shaking. My hands were like this, and I’m talking not a little bit, and I would try to sit on my hands and then my legs would go. I couldn’t make it stop. I was scared.
But Jeff’s parents were there. They were right there and I knew if they could sit there and take it, I could sit there and I could make sure that Jeff didn’t die in vain he wasn’t gonna die, and these people were going to get away with it. – August 28th, three days later, Gary Simmons’ trial comes to an end, and after just a few hours of deliberation, the jury returns with a verdict.
Gary is found guilty on all counts. Guilty of the murder of Jeffrey Wolfe, guilty of holding Brook captive and guilty of the abuse against her. Timothy Milano is also found guilty for having shot Jeffrey nine times and for his role in the kidnapping. Timothy is sentenced to life without parole. Gary is sentenced to death, but for Brook, there is no relief.
In her mind, if Gary Simmons was able to put a hit on her from prison, he will do it again. Brook changes her name, her look, she cuts her blonde hair short and dyes it dark. She spends all her time running and hiding year after year always changing, thinking that if she looks different, maybe they won’t be able to find her.
But not only does she run from Gary, but also from his family, from Lori, convinced that Gary’s kids would grow up to hate Brook because she put their dad in prison. – I was terrified of Gary’s family. I thought that, you know, maybe Gary and Lori were high school sweethearts and I just ruined their perfect marriage.
You know many years of my life I lost running from this, hiding from this? I lost myself. – The year is 2023. 27 years have passed since her escape, and Brook is afraid. But now she has a family of her own and it’s time to put her past behind her. But there’s someone who desperately wants to meet Brook. While filming for an interview, she learns from the Investigation Discovery team that Lori has asked for a meeting.
Brook doesn’t know what to expect, but she agrees. – I was 18 years old, I am 45 now. I’m tired of running, tired of being afraid, I wanna heal, I want my power back, I wanna know, “Are you gonna hurt me? Are you gonna come after me?” – I need to look her in the eyes so she knows Brook is my hero. Hi, Brook? – Hi, I’m Lori.
– I’m Brook. – Can I hug you? – Sure. – It’s very nice to meet you, finally. – This is so crazy. – It’s crazy. – You wanna come in? – Sure, sure. – I owe you a debt of gratitude. You are my hero. You might not believe that, but you are. And we have thanked God for you every day since you’ve escaped. I have four children who are grown because of you.
I’m here today because of you. – I’ve never looked at it that way. You kinda make it okay now. – It’s nice to know she’s as strong as she is. What she’s given me, you know, is closure and a debt that I could never pay. – I just feel like I was put there on purpose so that they didn’t get away with it. I’m not ashamed of it anymore, it doesn’t define me.
I am Brook Weber, period. I’m not a victim anymore, I’m a survivor of a violent crime and we’re gonna make it through it.
