Murder in Miami

12/3/2024

by M.P Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Summer in Miami is hot, humid and for two teenagers, deadly. Albert Brust was a 44- year-old building inspector employed by Dade County. He fantasized torturing other human beings, and one day he decided he wanted to make his dreams a reality.

A typical house in SW Miami turned out to be nightmare house. c.1973

His neighbors later described him to the police as a “loner and chronic complainer”, but none of them imagined that this bachelor converted a bedroom in his 1960s era bungalow home into a 4’ x 8‘ soundproof torture chamber. Once he completed his project in a clear example of premeditation, he set out to provide the missing piece of his fantasy which was a victim.

It was July 14, 1973, and in a stroke of beginner’s luck on his first hunting trip he captured, not one but two captives. They were two hitchhiking teenagers who had thumbed a ride to South Florida to enjoy the sunny weather and the beaches. Paula Gail Lee (aka Sally Dove), 15, from Kentucky and Mark Matson, 16, from Ohio, had only met the day before at the local beach. When a man calling himself Eric pulled up in a white panel van, offering them a ride and some housekeeping work if they needed the money, both of them probably thought it was their lucky day.

Paula Gail Lee c.1970s

Once they were inside the house, and the man who had seemed so amiable pulled a gun on them, they realized their mistake. When they saw the bathroom papered with pornographic pictures they might have gotten the first inkling they were not going to live through this encounter.

At gunpoint, Albert Brust ordered them to strip naked and perform various sex acts, while he took photographs of them. If they balked at his instructions, he threatened to shoot them. The hours dragged on for the teenagers, and their kidnapper never tired of giving them new sexual positions, while he kept taking photographs.

It was during those hours that Mark thought of escape. He waited for an opportunity, and perhaps out of desperation or just mistaking his body language, he sprung at Albert Brust, who had to put down his gun every time he snapped a picture. The kidnapper snatched the gun and shot the young man three times, killing him instantly. Brust then took a naked Paula and dragged her from the main part of the house to the torture chamber that lay behind a steel door.

Mark Matson (1957-1973)

Later police determined that the room and the door were made of thick panels insulated with foam rubber. The man shackled Paula to the wall held in place by chains. Brust hit a switch on the wall and special black lights blinked on. He flogged her entire body with a leather whip, punched her with his fist, and abused her sexually in every conceivable way. There was no need to gag her, and the reason he had taken the trouble with making the chamber sound proof was in order to enjoy the screaming.

He had different torture devices, some that were never disclosed by the police, but one was a specially constructed chair known as a “Chinese rape stool” made for anal sexual attacks. The police also found he kept several volumes of the Marquis de Sade’s works, which had been released for publication in the United States during the 1960s.

The torture continued for two days, until suddenly Brust decided to set her free, saying "I've taken a life, but now I'm going to give you your life." He dropped her off in Fort Lauderdale not far from where he had kidnapped her. He threatened that if she contacted the police he would find her and kill her.

Brust bathroom c.1973

Five days later, Albert Brust’s neighbor called police and told them the man next door had been sitting in a lawn chair in his back yard for over a day. The neighbor lady had first noticed it when hanging items on her clothesline. It had even rained and he had not moved. She thought he might be dead.

The police responded and confirmed that the man was deceased. Later it was discovered he had committed suicide by drinking a chocolate-milk and cyanide cocktail. Mark’s dismembered body was found embedded in concrete inside the shower recess of the bathroom. Smaller parts of his body he cemented into the actual wall of the bathroom. His hands, feet and head were encased in separate blocks.

Whether Albert Brust ever used this torture chamber on other persons is unknown, but they knew this could only have been built by a sadist. The police dug up his back yard, but did not find evidence of any other victims.

Police parked in front of Albert Brust's house c.1973

Police put together a profile of the man known as Albert Brust. He was born in Brooklyn, New York August 10, 1929, to Albert and Elizabeth Brust.

He never graduated from high school, and by the time he was 16 he already had run-ins with the law, and when he was 21, he was charged with kidnapping, robbery, assault and grand larceny in New York. He was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. While serving his six-year prison sentence he learned about the building and construction trade. He also took courses in geometry and calculus through the University of Chicago, but contrary to what he told acquaintances he never completed the calculus courses. He was paroled in 1957.

The crime that landed Brust in prison, was when he contacted a person who had an automobile for sale, and asked for a test drive. He then tried to hold up the owner, which it turned out was a one-time police officer. The man wrestled with him and took away his firearm. This was not the first "hold-up" of this type Brust had committed.

After his release, he worked in construction for twelve years, and in 1970, he moved to Florida. First he lived in rentals in Hollywood and South Beach. Neighbors and landlord who were interviewed about him, both described an irascible and weird man who did not have friends, and didn't get along with anyone.

A surveyor who knew him while he lived in Broward county said Brust "was very aware that he was insane. He even used the nomenclature a psychiatrist had given him in prison... He was really split."

Dade County standing inside the torture chamber constructed by Albert Brust c.1973

He bought the house in SW Miami and obtained a job as an inspector for the county. He was a 5'4" loner who was obsessed with loud noises. If a neighbor made a noise he would run outside and blow a police whistle at them.

Once he threatened one of his neighbors with his position as a county inspector, when the man shot off some firecrackers after the Miami Dolphins won a game. A co-worker said that he would take every opportunity to make other employees feel stupid.

A neighbor who lived behind his property told newspapers, "He was like a hermit. He didn't say anything except grievances. He disliked everything intensely. He always smirked and looked sarcastic. When you talked to him, you didn't want to stay near him."

Before buying the house in SW Miami, a rental landlord told police: "If anybody would make much noise, he'd throw a beer bottle through their jalousies."

Carl Erdwig ran the Outrider Motorcycle Shop at 83 NE 167th St., North Miami Beach and had known Brust for 5 years. He had serviced Brust's motorcycle until 1973, when he bought a van, however Brust kept dropping by the motorcycle shop.

Erdig said:

On a couple of occasions, he said he had disposed of somebody in the East River. On another occasion he said he had concreted somebody. I thought he was joking, but I wasn't sure. He said he preferred boys to girls although he was bisexual. I know he was homosexual because he tried to pick me up and hung around with a bunch of guys down on South Beach sometimes.

Mark Matson's funeral c.1973

He also said that Brust sometimes talked with a fake German accent.

In April 1970, Brust was living with a younger sister in Astoria, New York when he started a diary. Those early entries described a desire to commit suicide. He continued with his diary entries after moving to Florida. In his diary he noted, "Rape, murder, suicide. These thoughts are constantly with me... There is no doubt that by present standards I am mentally ill, a hopeless sociopath."

One of his fantasies was to keep a woman as a sex-slave, and it is possible he had never had sexual intercourse until he raped Paula. In another diary entry, he noted that Mark’s decaying body was making a horrible stink in the house, since the cement had failed to seal properly. The cement was actually sweating blood. He observed: "I have miscalculated. I know I could save the situation by a lot of disagreeable work, but the whole business is not worth the trouble".

The police found a black and white composition book he used as a diary, where he wrote of desire: "you eliminate desire by ceasing to live. All procreation becomes criminal. The ultimate crime is having children."

In his freezer, police found a number of meatballs, each containing a lethal quantity of cyanide. Neighbors told police Brust was kind to stray cats, and they had often seen him feeding them meatballs.

It was evident there was no kindness to be found in Albert Brust.

Once free Paula immediately went to Fort Lauderdale police with her story of kidnapping, rape and murder. The police called her mother in Kentucky, who told them she was a "pathological liar" so they discounted her tale. Her mother wired her money for plane fare back to Kentucky. Once there she was seen by a psychiatrist and hospitalized to treat the trauma of having fallen into Brust's hands. Since she was a minor, all information pertaining to her was kept confidential.

When Brust’s body was discovered, Paula had already left the state, and it proved her story had been true all along. Considering her family, and by extension the police did not believe Paula's story, if Brust would not have committed suicide, no one would have been the wiser of the crimes and the torture chamber he built inside his home.

Homicide detectives reopened several unsolved cases to see whether Brust might have been connected to them. Police confirmed that Brust had registered with county officials as a convicted felon at the same he applied for a job as a building inspector the year before.