SAN ANTONIO (Court TV) — Newly unsealed documents reveal the mounting evidence against Brad Simpson, which includes surveillance video investigators say shows him driving around in the hours after his wife’s disappearance with a blue tarp in the bed of his truck.
Brad Simpson is facing charges after his wife, Suzanne Simpson, disappeared. (Kendall County Sheriff’s Office/Olmos Park Police Dept.)
Brad Simpson, 53, is charged with murder and gun offenses in the disappearance of Suzanne Simpson, 51. Her body has not been found. One week after Brad was formally charged with Suzanne’s murder, his arrest warrant was unsealed.
While Suzanne was last seen alive on the evening of Oct. 6, Brad didn’t report her missing until 10:11 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 7, and placed the call 15 minutes after Suzanne’s friend had already contacted authorities to express her concerns. When Brad did call, he initially told police that he had last seen his wife after 11 p.m. on Sunday night. But the next day, Brad told Olmos Park Police Chief Fidel Villegas that he saw Suzanne on Monday morning at 6:30 a.m. before taking the couple’s 5-year-old daughter to school.
RELATED | Police focus on ‘uncooperative’ husband’s truck after wife disappears
Surveillance video showed Brad taking the 5-year-old to school on Oct. 7 in his black 2019 GMC Sierra truck with two white trash bags and an ice chest in the truck’s bed. Once at school, the child would tell a school counselor that her father “had pushed her mother against the wall, hit (physically) her mother on the face and hurt her mother’s elbow inside their residence. According to the child, [Brad] also turned off her mother’s phone because they were fighting.”
Suzanne’s personal banker told police that Suzanne had reported suffering physical abuse from Brad and told her “that if she went missing to look for her in a lake.”
Police have asked for information about Brad Simpson’s black GMC Sierra truck. (Olmos Park Police Dept.)
After dropping his daughter at school, police say Brad spent the day “intentionally engaged in a series of on/off cycles to include complete shutdowns of his cellular device preventing data collection.” However, police were able to track Brad’s truck using traffic cameras and other surveillance video. Within two hours of dropping his daughter off at school, a video from a Whataburger drive-thru shows Brad’s vehicle with three white trash bags, a large heavy-duty trash can, and a “large bulky item wrapped and secured in a blue tarp” with a firewood rack placed on top. Police said it appeared an object was concealed within the tarp.
The tarp remained in the back of the truck as Brad went to Home Depot, where he purchased two bags of Quikrete cement, an orange construction bucket with lid, heavy-duty trash bags, Clorox disinfectant spray and insect repellant. Before leaving, Brad spoke to a man in the parking lot. Police caught up with that man, who reported that Brad “randomly came up to him in the parking lot asking for directions to the nearest dump in Boerne.” At the time, Brad also turned his cell phone back off.
Police tracked the truck moving out of Kendall County and into Bandera County. When the truck returned at 1:41 p.m. on Oct. 7, the blue tarp in the truck was gone.
READ MORE | Brad Simpson charged with murder one month after wife’s disappearance
When police came to search the Simpsons’ property on Oct. 9, investigators reported finding a “ground-level burn site with a burnt laptop and multiple cellular devices.” Three cell phones belonging to Brad were recovered from the pit. A search warrant for the phones revealed two notes, titled “This next life” and “Last will and testament,” which apologized for physically assaulting Suzanne in August 2023 and again on Oct. 6, 2024.
Police also noted that Brad did not appear to be surprised at the time of his arrest, nor did he question why he was being arrested. Investigators said he “appeared unconcerned about his wife being missing and showed little to no emotion.” When he was taken into custody, Brad had “numerous lacerations and bruises” on his hands and arms.
Brad is scheduled to be arraigned on the murder charges on Dec. 19.
