Penny Farmer - Dead in the Water: Bringing Down My Brother’s Killer after His 33 Years on the Run

W hy were the tortured corpses of my brother, twenty-five-year-old Christopher Farmer, a young doctor, and his twenty-four-year-old lawyer girlfriend, Peta Frampton, found floating off the Guatemalan coast in Central America in 1978? Like so many of todays young people, after years of academic grafting they had set off to see the world, with high hopes and expectations.

They had been found tortured, bound and weighted down with heavy engine parts from which they had come adrift and Peta had a plastic bag over her head. Receiving such devastating news was like a bomb exploding in our family.

Why such a ghastly fate should befall them haunted us for 38 interminable years. It was inexplicable and devastating.

Time blunts the intense searing pain of bereavement but what remains is a dull throbbing ache; a longing for what might have been and the knowledge that a life with them in it would have been so much richer for us all. You never lose that sense of loss, even decades on.

There was some talk of revenge being needed for closure and, whilst I cant deny a strong longing for justice, there is also a desire to still the mind from constantly asking the question why? Your brain yearns to compute and make sense of such a tragic, senseless waste of life. Distracted for a while, ones thoughts are constantly dragged back, like some beast hauling its quarry into its lair, to the nagging question, why?

There is, however, one thing worse than not knowing why a loved one has died It is being stuck in limbo, not knowing if they are alive or dead but classed as missing. Its a horrible word and one that curdles the blood and sends shivers down the spine of any parent. In our case, Chris and Peta were missing for ten months. Ten very long months in which we knew nothing of their whereabouts or what had happened to them. Ten months in which the two respective families explored every possible avenue open to them to try to find out their fate.

In amongst the pain, hope springs eternal. Whilst there is no proof of death theres always hope, but like a tidal wave, reality floods into ones consciousness and logic takes over. Your hopes are dashed on the rocks of despair with the realisation that you are deluding yourself.

Sleep did little to obliterate the debilitating daily grind of worry as a recurring, very disturbing nightmare played tricks with my head. I dreamt that Chris had returned home, alive and well, and we held a family celebration. When the party was over, I went into his bedroom to tell him how happy I was that he had returned. Sitting on his bed, I found to my horror a total stranger asleep under the bedclothes. A rubber mask of Chriss face was lying on the bedside table. It was a nightmare that was to revisit me for many years.

Daylight and awake, doubts that start as a whisper steadily mount into a deafening crescendo, bombarding and assaulting every thought. Were they being held as prisoners, incarcerated in some Central American hellhole? Did they just want to cut off from their families and start life afresh? But, in our heart of hearts, we knew that would never be the case: their families meant too much to them.

I can remember the last time I saw them as vividly as if it were yesterday. Standing just 5 foot 8 inches in height, Chris made up in character what he lacked in stature. He was no introvert. His flamboyant dress reflected his colourful personality and that day he was wearing his much-loved, well-worn patchwork leather jacket. Peta was dark-haired, attractive and diminutive. I can still picture them in the doorway of their small rented house in the Birmingham suburb of Harborne, waving goodbye to Mum, Dad and I. It was the beginning of December 1977 and they had spent their last weekend in the UK saying their farewells to their respective families before embarking on their long-held plan to travel the world for a year. They were leaving the next morning for Heathrow to fly to Australia.