Riddle of the
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IT’S a double killing – nine months apart – that has baffled detectives and neighbours in a sleepy village for 30 years.
Hitmen blasted Alan Leppard on his doorstep with a 12-bore shotgun then fled in a big white car – leaving him to die in lover Brenda Long’s arms. Nine months later she was found dead in her bath – drugged, then drowned.
It sounds like a case from a violent US crime series.
But it’s much closer to home... in the Kent village of Monkton, population 661. And the unsolved killings are the talk of the town again – exactly 30 years since ladies’ man Alan, who married four times, met his fate.
There remain questions about the car used by the so-called Cadillac Killers – and a man, adorned with gold bracelet and gold watch, who called at a village pub asking about Alan.
He was shot on Easter Monday – April 1, 1991. The case gripped the nation and Crimewatch host Nick Ross described it as “like a killing from some second-rate Hollywood screenplay” when they ran a reconstruction.
The mystery deepened on December 28 that year when fitness fanatic Brenda, 42, was found drowned in her bath. She had been drugged with diethyl ether.
A pathologist said Brenda suffered a “deliberate and violent assault”.
DISTURBING
Recording a verdict of unlawful killing, the coroner described it as “a strange and disturbing case”. Who killed them, and why, remains a mystery. The car, thought to be a Cadillac, was never traced.
Yet retired murder probe cop Det Supt Nick Biddiss believes someone may yet come forward with a vital clue.
As he revisited Monkton for the Sunday Mirror, the memories came flooding back as he passed the 12th century St Mary Magdalene church.
He told us: “These murders stand out. For one, I’ve only ever had dealings with two murder victims when they were alive – one was Brenda, the other was Jill Dando, who I met on Crimewatch.
“I still hope someone might make a call that gives police that golden nugget that gets you somewhere. I hope, 30 years on, someone’s conscience might be pricked to say something they know.” Mr Biddiss said murders that looked like a “third party hit job” – like Alan’s and TV host Jill’s – were among the most challenging. He remains baffled why the killers used an “outlandishly noticeable car”.
He added: “Whoever pulls the trigger probably has no connection with the deceased. Unless you can connect the person who might have the motive with the person who pulled the trigger, that link is very difficult to establish.”
Alan, 43, a quantity surveyor, and account manager Brenda set up home in December 1990 after an office romance. They had complicated love lives.
Divorcée Brenda had left her car dealer boyfriend Arthur Hibbert.
Dad-of-one Alan had walked out on fourth wife Wendy after seven months.
Three weeks before his murder, a man wearing a red tie, gold bracelet and gold watch called at the White Stag pub two doors down from Alan and Brenda’s cottage, asking for him.
On the night of the killing, the couple were in bed watching TV when they heard a knock on the door just after 10pm. Brenda went to the window and saw two men by a “large white car”.
The men returned 45 minutes later
and Alan went to the door. Brenda told Crimewatch: “Then an almighty bang and a scream. I went to go outside. Alan came round the corner and as he came towards me he must have moved his hands because I was absolutely covered in blood and I started screaming.
“He said ‘Get in!’... I think because he was worried for me. He was just a grey colour. And he was just going and there was nothing I could do to stop him.” Brenda said of “kind and gentle” Alan: “I spent so long – I think he did – trying to find the right person.”
Following his death, Brenda moved to a flat 15 miles away in Whitstable, where she died.
Ex-boyfriend Mr Hibbert – who reportedly tried to rekindle their relationship after Alan’s death – was questioned by police but released without charge.
Nine days before Brenda’s inquest he was discovered in a Ford Escort with a hosepipe leading from the exhaust into the car. He was taken to hospital and recovered.
At the time of the shooting, Mr Hibbert was at a gym in Sittingbourne, 28 miles away.
He told Brenda’s inquest she had been
RIDDLE
“very depressed” and he had taken her back to her flat on the night before her death. He slept on the sofa and left the next day. When he returned later he climbed in through an open window to check on her – and found her dead. Mr Hibbert, who now works at a garage in Deal, Kent, said he did not want to talk when contacted this week.
Brenda’s late sister Joan saw her on Christmas Day and they spoke by phone the next day. Ex-cop Mr Biddiss said: “Her sister thought she sounded zombielike. She was concerned.”
Brenda’s death scene was initially treated as a suicide – until the post mortem found the ether. An empty pill bottle was in the bath and beside the tub was a gin and tonic glass and a Christmas card she had written to Alan – saying how much she missed him.
CHARMER
Mr Biddiss said: “I never thought she was the sort of person to take her own life. I found out she went on holiday to Jersey that summer and managed to find herself a friendly waiter out there. So she wasn’t that depressed.
“She was also a very lovable lady. She was of the view that Mr Hibbert wouldn’t be involved in anything that would cause pain or suffering to anybody. She wouldn’t think any ill of him.”
The pair were into bodybuilding and competed in competitions. Alan’s third wife – Patricia Leppard, 71, told the Mirror he was a charmer who walked out after she rumbled an affair. Patricia said: “He was a cheating a***hole, but he didn’t deserve to be killed. “When I met him he was living with an older woman two doors down. He was a serial cheat. When I was told he’d been murdered it was an absolute shock. I know he cheated on women, but he didn’t deserve that.He deserves justice.” Kent Police said they would continue to carry out “periodic reviews” into the murders.