Memorial tourney highlights tragic loss

(Times photo - Donovan Quintero)

LeAnn Eskeets, left, and Bennie Spencer, the parents of the late Brooke Spencer, pose Friday during the 1st Annual Brooke Linelle Spencer Memorial Basketball Tournament in Gallup with a photomontage of their daughter.

For the past two years, not a day has gone by that LeAnn Eskeets hasn't thought of her daughter, Brooke Spencer.

It's been a hard two years, trying to cope with her senseless murder at the hands of former boyfriend Philip Notah, 19, now serving a 15-and-a-half year sentence for second-degree murder in Spencer's stabbing.

But throughout years of counseling and trying to cope with memories of the Gallup High basketball star, who was just 17 when she died, Eskeets said she has never lost her love of watching young people play basketball.

"I would go and watch her play whenever I could," Eskeets said Friday, sitting outside Gallup High as teams from around the area competed in the first annual Brooke Spencer Memorial Basketball Tournament.

Thirty-two teams suited up for the tournament, which Eskeets hopes will not only bring attention to some of the best basketball players in the region, but will also bring more attention to the effect that domestic violence is having on area families.

The timing of the tournament - June 5 to 7 - was chosen to commemorate Spencer's last days.

"She was stabbed on June 5. She was declared brain dead on June 6 and we took her off life support on June 7," Eskeets said.

So people who attended the games also had the opportunity to learn more about programs in this area that help families cope with the murder of a loved one or deal with problems associated with domestic abuse.

Part of the tournament profits will be given to organizations like Battered Families Services and New Mexico Survivors of Homicide. The profits will also be used to fund a college scholarship for area youth in Spencer's name.

"One of the benefits of having a tournament like this," Eskeets said, "is to keep young people busy and focused."

She has spent the past two years trying to cope with the family's tragedy and come up with some sense of why all of this occurred.

Spencer had graduated from high school and was in the final stages of choosing which college she would attend that September. She was also in the process of breaking up with Notah.

On the night of June 5, 2006, no one knew that the relationship was headed toward a tragic end.

Eskeets' story, recounted numerous times at various domestic violence awareness events, starts with Spencer and Notah outside her house in Superman Canyon, a few miles northeast of Gallup, talking about their relationship.

She said she stepped outside several times to check on them, and nothing seemed amiss. Eskeets was finally going to bed when she heard Brooke call out, "Mom, Philip stabbed me."

Eskeets drove her daughter to the hospital and Brooke was able to walk into the emergency room. Soon after that, however, she lost consciousness and never woke up again. She was airlifted to Phoenix, where doctors took her into surgery.

She survived the surgery but doctors said her brain had become so swollen that it had ceased to function. Brooke was declared brain dead and a day later her family authorized the hospital to remove her from life support.

Eskeets said she faced a nervous breakdown after her daughter's death and was able to survive only because of her family's support and the help of some of the groups that participated in last week's tournament.

"I wish now that I knew more about him and his relationship with Brooke," she said of her daughter's killer, adding that she was unaware that Notah had been abusive while the two were a couple.

"You want to protect your daughter but you never think that something like this would happen," she said.

If there is anything she would tell parents of teenage daughters, it is to take more of an interest in what's going on in your children's lives and look for signs that something may need your attention.

Looking back on the relationship between her daughter and Notah, Eskeets said she saw no signs that Notah was capable of doing what he did.

"I only knew of him as a quiet boy," she said. "He never looked violent. He never showed any violence in front of us."

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