History of the Brooks Case
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del.icio.usJune 17, 2006: Authorities ID Butler County body as Wichita girl, 14
BY HURST LAVIANA
The Wichita Eagle
Residents of two south-central Kansas counties were saddened Friday to learn that a body found buried at the edge of a Butler County wheat field belonged to a pregnant 14-year-old Wichita girl who had been missing for nearly a week.
Police said a teenage suspect had been arrested and is expected to be charged next week with murder.
Wichita police Capt. Randy Landen said dental records confirmed during an autopsy Friday that the remains were those of Allison Middle School student Chelsea Brooks.
"We have one 17-year-old suspect in custody, and the investigation is continuing," he said during a news conference with Butler County Sheriff Craig Murphy.
"He will be booked into the Juvenile Detention Facility... . I anticipate first-degree murder charges" will be filed.
Landen said he could not discuss the cause of Chelsea's death or the nature of her relationship with the suspect. He said he couldn't speculate about when Chelsea may have been killed or about the status of her baby when she died. She was nine months pregnant at the time of her disappearance.
He said it was possible that others could be charged in the case.
"I'm not going to rule out any possibilities," he said.
Chelsea was reported missing by her family on June 9 after she disappeared while she and some friends were at Skate South, 1900 E. MacArthur Road.
In the center's parking lot on Friday night, Jerry Dickerson, 18, was trying to absorb the idea that he'd lost a friend he'd known for five years.
"I can't believe it happened," he said. "She was just energetic. She loved life in general, just the simple fact that she woke up every morning.
"She really didn't have to make friends. It was like gravity. They were all attracted to her. Everybody likes her."
Allison principal Deborah Laudermilk described Chelsea as a "delightful young lady," who was bright, well-adjusted and well-liked by her classmates.
"It is absolutely beyond my wildest nightmare that something this awful could happen," she said.
At the crime scene on Friday, Butler County sheriff's officers continued to seal off the mile-long stretch of Mulberry Road where the body was found Thursday.
Ed Wade has lived in the area for a little more than a year. About the biggest thing that usually happens on the deeply rutted road is kids getting their ATVs stuck in the mud, he said.
"It's a dicey little road," he said.
A yellow road sign identifies Mulberry as a minimum maintenance road. Few people use it regularly, he said, but it sometimes makes a nice shortcut.
"I was down it Wednesday night in fact," he said.
When he heard that the body was that of the missing Wichita teenager, Wade grew quiet.
"Oh, I had no idea. That's too bad... . It's too bad it was that girl."
About 10 volunteers from Sedgwick County's Community Emergency Response Team and two from Butler County's worked about 90 minutes at the scene late Friday afternoon.
Volunteer Chuck Loper of Wichita, still in his bright green safety vest marked "CERT," said the team usually responds to emergencies such as tornadoe s. The team assists emergency management and law enforcement personnel, helping to do whatever needs to be done.
Loper said he couldn't say what they had done in this investigation.
A Butler County sheriff's office captain rode around on an ATV as investig ators milled about the road. At some point later in the evening, a dump truck with a trailer carrying a Bobcat was allowed to go down the road.
Back at the skate center, Carmody Beckmeyer, 16, said she was at the center on the night that Chelsea disappeared.
Before leaving, she said, Chelsea told her friends she was going to see the father of her baby. Around 8:30 p.m., Beckmeyer said, Chelsea called someone at the center to say she was "with people" and would be back around 9.
"We thought she was just going to go see her baby's daddy," Beckmeyer said.
After Chelsea failed to return, Beckmeyer said, "We were scared but we didn't think anything like that could happen.
"We thought she ran away."
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Contributing: Phyllis Jacobs Griekspoor, Deb Gruver, Catherine Ho and Fred Mann