A woman whose body was found in a suitcase should not be defined by the bizarre circumstances surrounding her death, two of her teacher’s aides told NBC 7 in an exclusive interview Wednesday.
Brooke Macbeth's intellectual and physical disabilities, which left her a paraplegic, prevented her from forming words, but she engaged the world through a variety of expressions.
“She was an overall happy person and strong-willed,” Brandee van Alstine said.
Van Alstine and Sabrina Baltes, special education teachers’ aides, were Brooke’s hands when she could not hold and her balance when she could not stand for five of the eight years the girl attended Viking Academy.
“When she was in high school, she had a one-on-one aide. She was a person you could not leave alone at all,” van Alstine said.
So the aides were shocked to hear Brooke's remains were discovered in a large suitcase last week, duct-taped shut and stored in the Lakeside apartment she shared with her mother Bonnie.
“It's just sad,” Baltes said.
Bonnie alerted sheriff's deputies to her 28-year-old daughter’s body when they arrived at her door to evict her for failing to pay rent.
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Bonnie was taken to a hospital for an undisclosed reason. The medical examiner’s office has not yet determined Brooke’s cause of death, and no charges have been filed in this case.
“Her mom loved her to pieces. She loved her so much,” Baltes said.
Neighbors said they were disturbed to hear Brooke’s body may have been in the apartment for more than six months, but the teacher’s aides have another opinion.
“She just lost her baby of 28 years, and that was her whole world,” Baltes said.
Van Alstine is helping to organize a vigil for Brooke at John F. Kennedy Park in El Cajon, scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Friday. Most of the expected visitors will be Brooke’s teachers, assistants and staffers from Viking who knew her when she attended the school there.
