The Cold Case Files Page 9

  Forty-two-year-old Englishman Brooke Pickard was abducted by a group of armed men at a beach car park in Co. Kerry at around 11.20 a.m. on Friday 26 April 1991. He has not been seen since. It’s believed Brooke was lured to the car park near White Strand beach on the Ring of Kerry by someone he knew. Garda investigations to date suggest Brooke was helping someone who had apparently run out of petrol, when a group of armed men suddenly appeared from the side of a vacant holiday home. It’s known that five minutes before he vanished, Brooke and another man bought £3 worth of petrol from a pump at O’Leary’s shop in Castle Cove, the small village where Brooke, his wife and four children had been living for almost eight years. After buying the petrol, which he poured into a large can, Brooke and the other man got into Brooke’s blue van and drove a short distance down to the car park at White Strand. It would seem Brooke believed he was simply helping someone who needed to get their car started, but within seconds of arriving at the car park Brooke was attacked, bundled into his own van and driven away.

  Just moments before the abduction, a young girl who was riding her pony on the main road nearby saw Brooke and his passenger drive into the car park. The girl didn’t recognise the passenger but had seen someone like this man walking in the village a short time earlier. However, the girl knew Brooke and he gave a wave and a smile and said hello. Brooke was well-known and well-liked in the area. He was a Yorkshire man who fell in love with Ireland and together with his wife Penny had renovated a farmhouse to fulfil a dream of raising their family in the countryside.

  The young girl was moving slowly on horseback as she watched Brooke drive over to an orange-coloured car in the car park. Suddenly she saw a masked man running out a laneway at the side of the holiday home nearby. He was wearing a balaclava and was beckoning with his hand to someone behind him. The man was moving quickly towards Brooke’s van. All of a sudden the masked man saw the girl and he stopped and stared at her. He was only about 15 yards away. The girl, now very frightened, turned around on her pony and headed away immediately. She would later tell her friends what she had seen, but they assumed it had been children playing. It seemed so absurd to think that armed and masked men would be found in the middle of the day in the sleepy Kerry village of Castle Cove.

  The sighting of Brooke Pickard by this young girl is the last definite sighting of him. From information gleaned during the subsequent Garda investigation detectives now believe that within seconds of parking his van in the car park, Brooke was attacked, beaten and bundled into his own van. Detectives have information to suggest that up to five men may have been involved in attacking Brooke and that he put up a strong fight, and was only subdued when he was struck on the head with the butt of a gun by one of the gang. Both Brooke’s van and the orange car were driven out of the car park a short time later. Brooke’s van would later be found burnt out 27 miles away in a remote forested location close to Knocknagapple Mountain. The orange car which is believed to have been used to entice Brooke into the car park was later abandoned in the grounds of Limerick Regional Hospital. It had been taken to Co. Kerry from Co. Kilkenny without its owner’s consent.

  A group of men from Northern Ireland are suspected of being involved in the abduction of Brooke Pickard. The attack was not the work of a paramilitary organisation, but some of those involved may have had previous involvement with the IRA or INLA many years before. Gardaí still wish to question at least five men with addresses in Belfast. However, investigations also suggest there are a number of people living in Co. Kerry and Co. Cork who also have information about what happened to Brooke Pickard on that Friday morning over twenty years ago. These include foreign nationals who have made Ireland their home, and Irish people also. A total of 12 people were arrested during the original criminal investigation, including two women, but no charges were brought. Brooke Pickard is still officially a missing person, but his family and Gardaí both fear he was murdered soon after his abduction and then secretly buried.

  I met Brooke’s wife Penny in England where she now lives. Penny was forty years old when her husband vanished without trace. Their four children—Lisa, James, Crohan and Dan—were aged 15, 11, 7 and 5. The impact of Brooke’s disappearance on the entire family has been immense. Penny and Brooke were both from Leeds, and moved to Co. Kerry because they wanted a complete change of lifestyle, a fresh start and wanted to live in the countryside. They worked hard to build up the farm and they very much enjoyed life in Ireland. “I met Brooke in 1979,” recalls Penny.

  I was actually moving from Leeds to a nearby town, and I needed a removal man with a van. That’s how we met and soon after we began going out. Brooke was a very cheerful man, a hard worker, a real grafter. We decided to make a life somewhere in the countryside. We initially thought of moving to north-west Scotland because my parents had a holiday home there. We both loved it up there but Brooke was concerned about the harsh winters. We looked at a map and found that southern Ireland had similar terrain but a much milder climate. Neither of us had ever been to southern Ireland, we had no links there. But we just fell in love with Co. Kerry. We went and looked at the south-west peninsulas and we both fell in love with the same part of the same Kerry peninsula.

  Brooke and Penny settled on a beautiful location on the Ring of Kerry between Waterville and Sneem. The farm, with its mature trees, elevated location and sea views, was the type of place they had always dreamed of. The nearby village of Castle Cove had a shop and pub, a church, friendly people, country air and wonderful views. Brooke had asked an auctioneer to suggest locations where they might get five acres of land, a ruin and a stream. Of all the locations they were shown, both Brooke and Penny fell in love with a spot at Behaghane, just a mile outside Castle Cove. And so in 1983 they bought an old but sound farmhouse in need of a lot of work, complete with five acres, where they would soon keep all types of farm animals. To the back was a mountain range, to the front was the view down to the coast just a short distance away. And on a clear day you could look right across where the expansive Kenmare River met the Atlantic Ocean and see the next peninsula to the south, where the Slieve Miskish Mountains held court. It was perfect. In November 1983 the family moved in. “The first few years were incredibly basic,” remembers Penny.

  The previous owners had put in beams to build an upstairs but hadn’t completed it. We had come over that July and put in an upstairs before moving in. We piped water from the well in the back field down to the house. It was maybe two years before we got a bathroom and a flush toilet. We didn’t get mains electricity for many years after that. But it was a wonderful home. There was a single-storey cow shed adjoining the house, and Brooke took the roof off, capped the stonework and built it up to two storeys. Over the years we added further extensions. It wasn’t finished but it became a wonderful spacious home.

  The Pickards kept a busy farm. They acquired more fields and they kept goats, chickens, ducks and geese. They also had ponies, and Jersey cows and a few sheep. They had a Jersey bull named Goliath, and they kept a vegetable patch and planted fruit trees. Penny shows me some photos of Brooke, and in one he is smiling for the camera with a large shovel resting on his shoulder. Dozens of large blocks are piled high to his right and he is wearing wellies, jeans and jumper. It is a simple picture, but conveys the hard worker and happy character that Brooke was. In another photo he stands proudly with his arm around his youngest son Dan, who is standing on a stone wall outside their home. James and Crohan are also smiling in the picture, as is their older sister Lisa who is leaning on a half-door looking at her Dad and brothers.

  Penny Pickard spent the day of Friday 26 April 1991 doing housework and farmwork, painting a room, and reading the Bible and praying. Normal things, normal pleasures and normal chores on what was to become the last normal day Penny and her children would have.

  On the day Brooke disappeared Penny had no reason to suspect anything was wrong, as he wasn’t expected back until evening. When Brooke left the house that Friday morning he wa
s due to go and cut turf for the whole day. On a previous occasion there had been a problem with the vehicle and he had not returned home until very late because he’d had to unload the turf and fix the problem before loading it all up again. So when Brooke failed to show up on the evening of Friday 26 April 1991, Penny thought the same thing might have happened as before. It was an era before mobile phones so there was no way to contact Brooke, and Penny eventually went to bed. She had cooked a leg of lamb for dinner, and Lisa, James, Crohan and Dan had stayed up with their Mum waiting for their Dad until around 10.30 p.m. before going to bed. Eventually Penny turned off the oven and went to bed herself after 1 a.m. She was very concerned but could only think Brooke must be on his way. It was when she woke the following morning at 7 a.m. that she realised Brooke had not come home at all. She woke her daughter Lisa who suggested she ring John, the neighbour that Brooke had been due to go cutting turf with. Penny rang John and he told her Brooke wasn’t with him, that he had never shown up the previous day. Penny immediately knew something was badly wrong. Brooke was a stickler for punctuality, for keeping arrangements. It was completely out of character for him to fail to keep an arrangement. However, Brooke had previously gone away to England without telling anyone in advance, but leaving a note. Penny rang family and friends in England to check if Brooke was there but they had not seen him. She also began asking around the neighbours in Castle Cove, to see if anyone had seen Brooke, and eventually she met the father of the young girl and heard about masked men being seen with Brooke at the car park at White Strand the previous day.

  Sergeant Michael Griffin took the call at Caherciveen Garda station. A neighbour was ringing on behalf of Penny Pickard. Penny’s husband was missing since the previous day, and she had just been told about armed and masked men being seen with Brooke in the car park at White Strand. The people who had first heard the girl’s story had assumed it had merely been children playing, but now it was becoming clear that Brooke Pickard was missing and the armed and masked men at White Strand car park were very real. It was now more than 30 hours since Brooke had last been seen.

  Immediately upon receiving the phone call Sergeant Griffin and Detective Garda Dan Coughlan travelled to Penny’s house and they spent the following hours piecing together what was known about Brooke’s last movements. Gardaí immediately began a major criminal investigation, and over time would build up a detailed picture of what had most likely happened to Brooke. There are gaps in the story but, based on solid detective work, good eyewitnesses and the discovery of Brooke’s van in the Kerry Mountains, much is now known or suspected about the abduction and most likely the murder of Brooke Pickard.

  Brooke left his home shortly before 11 a.m. on Friday 26 April 1991. He was looking forward to spending the day getting a trailer-load of turf to heat the house. A neighbour of his was giving him the turf from a bog near Waterville as a payment for work Brooke had done earlier in the week when he had transported a calf from Castle Cove to a woman in Kenmare. Brooke had told his neighbour John that he’d meet him around eleven that Friday morning. When Brooke said goodbye to Penny it was a normal day, nothing yet out of the ordinary. Brooke came back into the house twice, once to get a shovel, and the other time thinking he’d forgotten a shopping list which was actually in his pocket. He was wearing blue overalls and brown leather working boots. He got into his blue diesel Ford Transit van, it was a distinctive van with a long wheel base and had an English registration number YNP 231W. As he headed down the lane towards the village, he stopped and called to another neighbour, Brian, to give him the name of a farmer who had some animals for sale. Brian would later tell Gardaí that Brooke was in good form, was his normal self. Brooke said goodbye to Brian and headed for John’s house across the other side of the village. By chance, from a good distance John actually saw Brooke leaving Brian’s. From his house John had a clear view across the village and could make out the blue van coming down the lane from Brian’s house. He expected Brooke to arrive at his door within a few minutes as they had arranged. However, Brooke never showed up. Having left Brian and driven down the lane on his own, and either just before or soon after he pulled onto the N70 Ring of Kerry road to enter the village, someone stopped him and apparently asked for help in getting petrol for their car which was at White Strand car park.

  It’s believed that the person who stopped Brooke had previously been in the area. They did not live locally, but perhaps knew the best spot to stop Brooke’s van so as to limit the chances anyone might see them. And it must have been someone that Brooke somehow knew. It must have been someone that he felt comfortable helping. Brooke was the kind of person who might have helped anyone but the circumstances and the geography indicate that Brooke was assisting someone he knew. The orange car in the car park was situated more than a kilometre to the east of Castle Cove village, while Brooke’s house was just over a kilometre to the west of the village. Any person who had simply run out of petrol at the beach could have gone to the nearby pump and got petrol to bring to their car. But someone had effectively sought out Brooke and had asked for his assistance. Brooke was a good mechanic and perhaps the person knew this. Maybe they made up a story about the car experiencing some other trouble which Brooke might be able to help with, or that there was someone else in the car who wished to speak with Brooke. Whatever the lure that was used, it doesn’t appear that Brooke was under duress when he picked up his passenger, nor when he stopped a few minutes later and got the petrol in a can from the BP pump at O’Leary’s shop in the village. Nor did he seem under any pressure as he and his passenger drove into the car park at White Strand. The way Brooke waved to the girl on horseback and said ‘hi’ was typical Brooke. It seems that until he pulled his van up behind the orange car at the end of the car park Brooke had no idea of the imminent danger he faced.

  Gardaí believe they know exactly the actual orange car which was parked in the car park and which was apparently used in the abduction. Thanks in particular to the excellent observation of one witness, detectives believe they not only know the make and model of the car, but the actual car itself. Sometimes a witness can be particularly observant, or have a sixth sense about something. One such person was a woman who was in Castle Cove less than fifteen minutes prior to Brooke’s abduction and who noticed an orange car parked in the car park at White Strand. There was something about the car that seemed out of place. It was just a feeling that the woman had. The woman’s husband had seen the car earlier in the morning at around 10.15 a.m. and noticed three men in it. He was then out with his wife a short time later and saw the car again. It was parked at the White Strand car park near a block of timber which was on a trailer. The woman got a pen and the nearest thing she could find to write on, and so on a copy of The Kerryman newspaper she wrote down the licence plate of the orange Toyota Corolla that seemed out of place. She also jotted down the time, it was 11.10 a.m. The man and woman continued on about their day, but they later saw the same car driving fast near Castle Cove village. When the couple subsequently heard about the disappearance of Brooke Pickard they immediately told Gardaí what they had seen and handed over the copy of The Kerryman with the licence number of the orange car written on it.

  As Garda investigations continued, it seemed a number of people had seen the same car that morning. White Strand car park is well below the level of the nearby N70 road and is shielded from a significant portion of the main road by a wall, but some people walking or driving past still got a glimpse into the car park and noticed some activity. One man actually saw Brooke’s blue van and the orange Toyota Corolla in the car park at around 11.20 a.m. but he didn’t see any people. About ten minutes later another man was passing by and glanced into the car park and saw about five or six people down the end of the car park. Another man also saw the orange car in the area and he had a particularly good memory of it. It was a four-door model with a towbar fixed to it, and it had a red rear number plate.

  The orange car that it is believed was us
ed by the abductors had been taken without its owner’s knowledge from north Co. Kilkenny. Sometime after Brooke was abducted the car was left in the grounds of Limerick Regional Hospital. It was a 1980 Toyota Corolla and there were a number of stickers on the car, including one for the Italia 90 soccer World Cup. The car was later forensically examined and it was established that it had been recently cleaned both inside and out. Brush fibres were found at the windows of the car which looked like plastic automatic car-wash fibres, and there was very little dust or debris inside the car. It appeared that after the car had been used in the abduction of Brooke Pickard, someone had gone to great lengths to try and remove any trace of evidence from the vehicle.

  It’s possible the Toyota Corolla was indeed suffering some genuine engine trouble on the day Brooke was abducted. When later examined the Corolla had dirt in the carburettor and was cutting out. A number of witnesses who had seen a similar car on the Ring of Kerry on Thursday 25 April, the day prior to the abduction, described seeing an orange car parked awkwardly on the side of the road. The witnesses all saw the car close to the village of Sneem, nine miles east of Castle Cove. They later told Gardaí that the way the car was parked made them think it had broken down. The car these witnesses saw was very like the car used in the abduction. It had a red rear number plate, a towbar and was an orange Toyota Corolla. This opens up the possibility that the armed gang were in the Co. Kerry area at least one day before they abducted Brooke. Perhaps they had been carrying out reconnaissance or perhaps they were meeting with one or more local people to finalise plans for the abduction.

  The fact that the car believed used in the abduction was later found to be cutting out also opens up the possibility that Brooke had indeed believed he was going to White Strand car park to help fix a car. It is just a theory, but given the fact that Brooke was a good mechanic, perhaps the fact that the Toyota Corolla was giving trouble was a convenient inconvenience. Perhaps the gang decided to use a truthful reason to entice Brooke down to the car park. Perhaps the plan involved making sure he brought his van as well. Perhaps Brooke bought the petrol en route to the car park in case that was the simple problem with the car. Perhaps the person who had waved him down as he drove onto the main road was actually being genuine in saying he had car trouble. Perhaps the abduction was a spur of the moment decision by other people who had been in the car and were waiting. However, if this is the case, why has the person who drove into the car park with Brooke never come forward to say what happened? That man’s failure to identify himself and say what he knows has led Gardaí to strongly believe that he was part of the abduction plot, and that coincidentally, the getaway car later broke down completely and was abandoned in Limerick.