John Jefferson
Inset Left: Brad Simpson (Kendall County Sheriff’s Office). Inset Right: Suzanne Simpson (Olmos Park Police Department). Background: The house where Suzanne Simpson was last seen (Google Maps).
A Texas woman vanished without a trace from the posh suburban town she called home earlier this week. Now, her “uncooperative” husband is behind bars, Lone Star State police say.
Suzanne Clark Simpson, a mother of four, was last seen at around 11 p.m. on Sunday, according to the Olmos Police Department.
Brad Chandler Simpson, 53, now stands accused of one count each of assault causing bodily injury to a family member and unlawful restraint. He was arrested during the early morning hours on Wednesday by Kendall County Sheriff’s Office deputies, jail records show.
Details of the case suggest additional charges could be imminent.
During a press conference on Wednesday, however, Olmos Park Police Chief Fidel Villegas said Brad Simpson was not currently a suspect in his wife’s disappearance.
The police chief said there was “a disturbance” between the couple the night Suzanne Simpson went missing. That disturbance took place at a club called The Argyle in nearby Alamo Heights, a neighborhood of San Antonio, which completely bounds the affluent enclave of Olmos Park.
Law enforcement were not made aware of that disturbance until the husband himself made mention of the “altercation” when he reported his wife missing some 24 hours later, the police chief said. There were indications, including witness statements, that things “got physical” between the couple in both San Antonio and then, later, back home.
While treating the matter like a normal missing persons case, police made an appointment to follow up with Brad Simpson, Villegas said.
“He didn’t keep that appointment,” the police chief said during the press conference. “So, he’s been uncooperative with that.”
By the time police began their search for Suzanne Simpson, her cellphone had gone missing as well, authorities said.
Brad Simpson was arrested on two warrants out of Bexar County on an access road off Interstate 10 East in Kendall County, police said.
What led police to make that arrest — on the two relatively minor charges at least — is spelled out in an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by San Antonio-based ABC affiliate KSAT.
One neighbor told police that sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. on Sunday night, he heard loud arguing outside his bedroom window, according to the affidavit. Then, when he looked outside, he allegedly saw the Simpsons engaged in a physical altercation.
During the fracas, Suzanne Simpson was trying to get away from her husband, the neighbor said. Brad Simpson “was clearly attempting to keep Ms. Simpson from running away,” according to the affidavit.
The same neighbor would go on tell police he saw last the couple walking to the west, according to the affidavit. Then, he said, he heard two or three screams coming from a brushy area nearby. Roughly an hour later, the neighbor told police he saw Brad Simpson leave his house in a black GMC pickup truck. The neighbor said the husband returned one to two hours after that, according to the affidavit.
On Monday afternoon, Brad Simpson received a call from the school one of their children attends alerting him that Suzanne had not picked up their child, police said. The husband told investigators his wife was the one tasked with picking the kids up from school.
On Tuesday, school staff told police the Simpson’s daughter said her parents were “fighting,” that her father had given her mother a bruise on the elbow, and taken her phone away, according to the affidavit.
In the court document, investigators opined that Brad Simpson “appeared to be separating himself from his family” by going out to his ranch in Bandera County.
One relative allegedly told police the defendant “had called him and apologized for all the problems that he had caused.”
Villegas, during the press conference, said “articles of interest” were recovered from the nearby woods. He implored anyone with information about the location of Brad Simpson’s pickup truck to come forward. The search for the missing woman, last seen wearing a black dress and heels, continued into Wednesday afternoon.
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