Nurse testifies slaying victim was in good health

Kim Smith

Friday, July 13, 2001 | 10:10 a.m.

Christine Smith appeared to be in relatively good health just one month before her daughter claims she died of natural causes.

Judy Zito-Pry, an adult nurse practitioner, said that although she was worried that Smith might have been suffering from dementia, she had no physical ailments that could have caused her death.

Zito-Pry testified Thursday in the Brookey West murder trial.

Prosecutors Frank Coumou and Scott Mitchell believe West killed her 64-year-old mother in February 1998, placed her in a 55-gallon trash can and hid the can in a storage unit.

The motive, they contend, was a $1,100 Social Security check that was automatically deposited into her mother's bank account on a monthly basis.

Because Smith's body wasn't discovered until February of this year, however, medical examiners were unable to determine a cause of death due to decomposition.

West's attorneys, deputy public defenders Scott Coffee and Lynn Avants, told jurors that Smith died of natural causes and West, 46, panicked and put her in the trash can. They have hinted that the grocery sack found tied around Smith's nose and mouth was placed there as a sign of respect.

Zito-Pry testified she saw Smith five times between April 1997 and January 1998. Each time the elderly woman visited her, Zito-Pry said she had minor complaints such as mild asthma, toenail fungus, forgetfulness and urinary tract infections.

Smith's vital signs were always well within normal, Zito-Pry said.

Under cross-examination, Zito-Pry acknowledged that a person with heart disease can have normal vital signs.

She wasn't too concerned when Smith once complained about shortness of breath because she knew Smith had once been a smoker, Zito-Pry said. She prescribed an inhaler and occasionally refilled it, but Smith never again complained about the ailment.

When asked why she never ordered Smith to undergo an EKG or stress test, Zito-Pry said she never saw any other signs that would indicate heart disease or something like congestive heart failure.

During Smith's last visit in January 1998, Zito-Pry reminded Smith and West that she would like to see a CT scan that had been taken of Smith's brain in California a short time before.

She also recommended that Smith see a geriatric specialist so he could determine if she had Alzheimer's Disease.

Zito-Pry said Smith had scored below normal on a memory test and she was concerned.

The nurse practitioner agreed with Coumou's suggestion that the relatives of Alzheimer's patients suffer from considerable stress.

Jurors also heard Thursday from T.J. Hanes, an investigator with the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General.

Hanes testified that officials with Social Security stopped sending Travis Smith Junior disability checks in September 1996 because he had disappeared.

According to witnesses, West has been telling everyone for three years that she sent her mother to live with Travis Smith, who is West's brother.

So far, Travis Smith has accrued around $30,000 in disability checks, Hanes said. That fund will continue to grow in a special bank account at a rate of about $500 a month.

Hanes said he's never heard of anyone disappearing and then re-appearing to collect their benefits. He did say, however, that it's common for people to continue to collect their dead relative's checks.

Hanes testified that West wrote a letter in July 1996 asking Social Security officials to begin direct depositing her brother's checks. Up until then, the checks had been coming to her house in California.

West wrote that her brother was a transient and she was unable to find him, Hanes said.