The minister who followed the call of God - but ended up manacled
and tortured to death in jungle swamp
By BARBARA DAVIES
Right up until the moment he was brutally murdered, David Brash
believed his life was being guided by the will of God. In the eyes
of the 62-year-old Baptist minister, God was behind his marriage
last year to a pretty young Filipina girl, 40 years his
junior.
And at a time when he could have been forgiven for considering
retirement and a quieter pace of life, his unwavering faith was
also behind his decision to leave his home in Warrington, Cheshire,
and move to the marshy wilderness of the southern Philippines with
his young bride.
There on the wild, rural island of Mindanao, Brash preached that
tragedies and disasters were God's punishment for the "sin of
mankind", unaware that the most evil sin of all was being plotted
against him.
Last week, barely a month after he left the UK for the last time,
the deeply religious missionary's badly burnt body was recovered
from a swamp in the village of Barangay Tagapira.
It has yet to be formally identified, but his 22-year-old wife
Annalyn has, according to Filipino authorities, already confessed
to paying two men to have him killed.
In addition, she has been charged with the crime of "parricide" - a
strangely archaic term which usually refers to the killing of a
parent or close relative.
From the point of view of the Filipino police, the case is as good
as closed. Two men, Renante Puerto Prado, Brash's 22-year-old
driver, and Noah Martinez Noah, 30, have also been charged with the
minister's murder despite the fact that they are still on the
run.
But in a country notorious for corruption, the investigation into
Mr Brash's death is still mired in confusion and rumour.
Now, the Mail has pieced together the extraordinary series of
events which led to this complex man's brutal murder.
According to local media reports, Mr Brash's wife Annalyn and
suspected hitman Prado were lovers. Annalyn is also alleged to have
told police her husband was beating her.
Could such a serious allegation against this man of God really be
true, or is it her attempt to defend her actions in arranging his
death?
Just hours before confessing to the police, she sent a text message
to a Filipino pastor who had been best man at her wedding to Brash,
begging for forgiveness and prayer, and admitting that she had
succumbed to "anger, emotion and temptation".
Back in Britain, Brash's former wife, 61-year-old Veronica, and
their two sons, Andrew, 36, and Ian, 35, are struggling to come to
terms with his death, as are members of Runcorn Independent Baptist
Church, who waved him off on his missionary dream last month.
And yet the meticulous diaries Brash kept for the past five years
and posted on his personal website give clues to the dangers he
faced, long before he married a young woman who appears to have led
him to a terrible and agonising death.
Ultimately, David Brash was an idealist. He believed in the
goodness of people, and his blinding faith left him vulnerable to
being exploited.
According to friends, he embraced his new life in the Philippines
with typical zeal, seemingly uncaring that his new home was in what
the Foreign Office describes as a "no-go area".
He became embroiled in a world shrouded in church corruption and
financial scams. When he died, according to his diaries, he was on
the brink of exposing the lies he had encountered.
But five years ago, Brash was living a different, far more ordinary
life.
The farm labourer's son, who was born and bred in Liverpool and
Cheshire, ran his own one-man computer repair company and devoted
most of his spare time to his church. His wife Veronica and two
sons completed the happy family picture.
Then, in February 2002, he received an e-mail invitation from
pastor Edgar Burgonios, whose church was on the island of Mindanao
in the Philippines. Brash visited for two weeks the following
August, a trip he later described as "life-changing".
"After years of plodding along in a small church, my horizons have
widened considerably," he said.
He was bowled over and flattered by the chance to preach to
seemingly adoring crowds of foreigners and as soon as he arrived
back in the UK, he began excitedly planning his next trip.
That took place in May 2003. This time, Brash began distributing
heavily- discounted Bibles wherever he could.
But he also soon found himself caught in what he later discovered
to be a financial scam - allegedly at the hands of Edgar Burgonios,
the man who had originally invited him to the islands.
Brash used his own credit card to obtain cash to buy land after
Burgonios said it would be used to build a church and an
orphanage.
That he did so without question might be seen, by some, as an
example of his selfless generosity. Others would regard it simply
as a deep-seated naivety. In his diary, Brash wrote: "Truly the
Lord was at work. Add to that the fact that I was there and able to
lay my hands on money instantly, and you can see the Lord's timing.
The building project certainly has the Lord's seal upon it."
But during his next trip to the Philippines, in the summer of 2004,
Brash began to suspect his friend's motives.
After discovering that the pastor had bought the land in his own
name - and not the church's - Brash appears to have seen the light
(as he might have put it) and took legal action to try to get his
money back, having told friends that he had uncovered
corruption.
Later, during another visit to the island, he finally confronted
the pastor and his wife.
He wrote: "If they want me to drop my action they must cooperate
fully with my lawyer (I doubt that they will). I told them that I
was fed up with being lied to by Christians, that those who tell
lies about me are not my friends."
By now, he had met Annalyn, the young teenage girl who would
eventually become his second wife. Their paths first crossed in
August 2004, after which he told friends he "got on very well" with
the 19-year-old, whose mother worked for the local Pentecostal
church.
But it seems their friendship grew the more he went to visit the
island - a situation which appears to have made him a target for
enemies and detractors.
During one church tour, he found that only two hotel rooms had been
booked for himself, his "lady assistant" and their driver.
He recalled: "To my amazement, the pastor booked the young lady and
myself into the double room, in spite of my protests. 'Say that she
is your daughter,' I was told.
"After the pastor had departed we swopped around so that the young
lady had the single room.
(To be continued...)
