In late October 1962, the manageress of the Bear & Ragged Staff Hotel, Mrs Doris Harley, informed Kenilworth Police about a theft from the premises. Brain Painter a barman, aged 24, from Cheshire, who had worked at the ‘Bear’ for about two months, had disappeared along with around £370 from the safe, and a car belonging to one of the guests.
Mrs Harley told the police, that Painter was on his own while working in Kenilworth, but he made frequent phone calls to his wife in Conway, North Wales. She was apparently, pregnant. The next report of him was on Thursday 25th October, when he turned up in France.
Painter had contacted the British Embassy saying that while visiting the Eiffel Tower he had been robbed of his passport and wallet, which contained money and travellers cheques. He was issued with some money and emergency travel documents to get him back to England, and told them he would be travelling back on Friday – but he never did.
Body Found In Troyes
The next time anything was heard of him, was when his body was found in a remote forest near Troyes, eastern France, close to the Luxembourg border, which was about 100 miles from Paris. His body was reported to have been found slumped over the wheel of a stolen french car, which had Paris number-plates. Newspaper reports indicated that empty sachets of Aspirin were found next to his body. Police enquires led them to questioning a hostess at a Paris night club, but this didn’t lead to anything useful.
Body Taken To Paris – Conflicting Evidence
His body was taken to Paris for a post-mortem. The medical examiner indicated that in his opinion an overdose of Aspirin did not kill him. Internal organs were examined, which revealed that he had died from carbon monoxide poisioning. This led to the theory that his death was due to exposure from exhaust fumes, but this could not be confirmed.
The French police disclosed that his body and head were wrapped in a waterproof sheet, so concluded he could not have killed himself. On this evidence it looks like murder – what else? But nothing was ever reported in the UK press in the weeks and months following his death, and it quickly turned into a cold-case.
The Death Certificate
Strangley, on the British version of his death certificate, it does not list the cause of death, but it does say a ‘Local death certificate produced’, which presumably would confirm the possible/probable cause of death. The date of his death was recorded as ‘About the 28th October’.
So, in very mysterious circumstances the ‘Bear barman’, had come to a lonely end, in a french forest – but was it suicide or was it murder?