Unsolved Chris Brahney

[Silent Alarm]

Hi there,

I just signed up to this forum to add "my two cents" as it were. Like some of you here, this incident also fascinated and got to me.

Thanks for dropping in, and hopefully you stay. A bit of a bad week for my fascination as an AFL club (you're on an AFL forum, in case you don't know) is being investigated for performance enhancing drug use. But hopefully you stick around. Always good to have another perspective.

The articles that I've linked below definitely clear some things up. I think the fact he was with one mate makes the separation a lot more suss. And considering they were on ecstasy, I highly doubt they had an argument – which did cross my mind.

Being mates with Ian Brown's nephew explains a bit. Those tickets sold out fast, and I knew he had tickets to the first two gigs. It struck me as extremely lucky that he got two. But finding out about his cocktails and everything interests me. I knew he worked at the Green Room through facebook and some news reports, and he also started a band night there. Do you have any more information about him? Just little tidbits? I think he might've made music under the name 'easy.' as well, because there's a braface soundcloud as well. To add to the stalkerism, he also had a Fantasy Premier League team called B-Rah's Brahnfathers.

The fact that the railing is high, and that he was on the walkway for a while (CCTV confirmed to be walking up an down for an hour or two, this witness saying Brahney was sitting against the railing) just makes me think suicide. But it's just really, really odd. It's not like he slipped, or, was there for a while. And as you note, why did he go into Manchester? Maybe he was just taking some time out and thinking whether it was worth going to a pub, or, I dunno... it's just all speculation. But it's just odd.

I think he was at Leeds Metro in 2010, maybe near the end of his degree. So the anxiety thing isn't hugely surprising. I don't believe the family reckon it's suicide, either. It's just an extremely unfortunate, odd, but very sad mystery.

http://www.messengernewspapers.co.uk/news/10206809.Death_of_Christopher_Brahney_deemed_unexplained/

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/parents-told-son-chris-brahneys-1293081

 

[hatthewmartley]

Finding out he was on MDMA and that he was seen to be alone, sitting against the railing, does make me think it was suicide too. I did a quick bit of research on MDMA and the link with suicidal thoughts and they seem to be quite common during the "come-down" process.

"It is not unusual for the initial euphoria after the intake of ecstasy to be overshadowed by serious anxiety and panic attacks, also known as “horror trips”. This can result in depression and suicidal thoughts. Deep depressive moods resulting in suicide or attempted suicide after a single intake, have been observed. All this is the consequence of damage to the serotonin cells in the brain, which plays such an important role in depressions."

"The rebound "low" after taking ecstasy has been linked to suicidal depression. A teenager named Dayna Moore is quoted on theMonitoring the Future Web site on the pitfalls of ecstasy rebound: "When I came down, I fell into a deep, dark hole. It was a depression I couldn't stand." Anyone with a history of mental problems would be more likely to experience this difficulty."

As for any "tidbits," I probably don't know any more about him than you do. Like I say, I never knew him personally. Friends tell me he was a huge Beatles fan. He did study at Leeds. He went to a lot of music festivals.

http://www.aegd.ch/04engl/pdf_engl/facts about ecstasy.pdf
http://www.enotes.com/ecstasy-mdma-reference/ecstasy-mdma

 

[Silent Alarm]

Hmm. "Anyone with a history..." Sad stuff. Imagine if he'd just kept with his mates?

Are you from Timperley? So you have mutual friends, I guess. I don't know a huge amount, so anything you know I'd like to hear.

 

[hatthewmartley]

I live about 5 minutes from Timperley, in a district called Brooklands. I drive through Timperley village daily, though. It's a nice area. Not yet as ravaged by the dysfunctional kids as neighbouring areas. And I don't know about any music project called "easy." but I know he did play bass occasionally in a band with his friend Tom. They may well have been called "easy." but I'm not sure. Other than that, I don't think I have much more trivia. What exactly do you want to know?

 

[Silent Alarm]

I'm just going off this soundcloud account. There's some furry costume thing on his Insta as well. No, I'm just interested in the kind of person he was. He seemed to be fairly well liked, and a City fan.

 

[hatthewmartley]

With these findings (that he had taken an unknown quantity of ecstasy tablets), I'm now leaning towards death by misadventure. If he was to go through one of those "horror trips" when alone and by a river in the middle of the night, it doesn't seem so improbable.

 

[Chris Partlow]

Thanks for the update, letting us know that the inquest had taken place, as disappointing as the verdict is - like other people, I was hoping the inquest would bring some new information to light.

Anyway, the MDMA aspect, perhaps the only new piece of evidence makes me think suicide. Although I am wary of placing too much emphasis on his past anxiety, in conjunction with the MDMA, it could well be the explanation.

I used to suffer severe panic attacks and will always be an anxious person. I have taken ecstasy and cocaine a handful of times from the ages of 15 to mid-twenties (I'm in thirties now) and know only too well of the adverse side-effects. I once suffered an enormous panic attack whilst on ecstasy and it was utterly terrifying and overwhelming. There's nothing like it. I have been attacked in Manchester, nearly drowned whilst swimming in the ocean, been stranded in South Central LA at night - nothing comes close to the abject terror of a panic attack like that.

I think it's interesting what you say about him heading to 42nd Street. I never thought about that but I remember that those post-gig 'theme nights' there and at 5th Avenue are huge and sounds really likely, especially if he knew friends/people he would know would be there, that he could have been heading there with his phone being lost. Destination wise, I was always baffled as to where he was heading. Though what made him turn into that alley, we'll never know.

Those bars are too high to have fallen over and they know that there was no one else on the balcony with him for the entirety of his time there. Those bars are really quite high and I don't see how he could have fallen in. I really feel for his dad when he says that suicide has never entered his mind, 'not even for a second.' Is that a father's instinct or through his grief and loss, he is unable to accept it? We won't ever know now, but perhaps it is much less a pre-meditated suicide and more 'misadventure' like you said, (though is there any other word as vague as 'misadventure' in the English language?),some terrible result of being on the pills.

It's really sad. I think he went out that day expecting to have the time of his life and never saw where it was going to end. God only knows how his parents and friends feel. Perhaps there's support from the families of all the other young men who have died mysteriously in English waterways in the past year alone - two unconnected lads found in the same stretch of the Thames on the same day in January. I don't think it's anything sinister, just plain weird. It's staggering to me how many lads this happens to:

Connor O'Donoghue: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20970624

Nathan Taylor: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-21304804

Nathan Tomlinson: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-12439674

AdrianPalaniciuc: http://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk...om_Thames_believed_to_be_missing_17_year_old/

DavidYoung: http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/n...ckburn_man_David_Young_found_in_River_Ribble/

Just a handful of the recent incidents...

 

[Silent Alarm]

His mate who was quoted in today's stories has a quality facebook. B-rah seemed like the kind of dude you'd like to hit the beers with. Poor guy. I always feel low when I think of the guy.

 

[hatthewmartley]

I think that maybe he was unaware of what he was doing. Maybe the come-down really kicked in halfway through his journey and he just needed to get off the streets. Who knows.

There certainly has been an increase in young men found in rivers or canals in the Manchester area lately, although I do think they are unrelated. Two men were found just after new year; one not too far from where Chris was found and one in Stockport. Both were reported missing on new year's day. Another lad was found just last week, reported missing after leaving a pub to make his way home, on his own.

The pattern is that drink and/or drugs all played a role in one way or another. We might never know what really happened or why. I think we need to come to our own conclusions and let it be.

 

[Sky face]

I have to say, I've found this really interesting. Again, I came across it having my regular weekly check as to whether anymore info had been released.
This really got to me, at first I thought it was cos I was at the gig, then thought it was because the group reminded of me and my crowd a few years back and while still worried by my obsessive behaviour on the case wondered if it affected me more as I'd just recently become a mum for the first time??
Anyway... An otherwise normal 30 year old with a good old past in music, gigs, entering into being a grown up its baffled me why I have spent far too many hours stalking friends and photos close to this guy. I can't explain it!? I feel quite relieved to find there are others like me out there??
For whAt my opinion is worth...Personally I did think he was gay... I read somewhere they lost a mate a few months prior, which I thought could have been related???
Not sure, but I'd gathered by the various photos I'd seen that he was a bit of an arty/experimental/open minded kinda fella and drugs did pop into my mind.
I thought perhaps it was a place they went after a night out to come down, have a bit of a smoke etc but then his Friends would know about that place so then they would have mentioned it no?
I was also confused about the bag... But perhaps there was weed in it too??
I'm not particularly spiritual, infact I'm not spiritual at all, but I get strong gut feelings about stuff and I'm usually right, but within days of him going missing I got the impression he'd ended it on a bang! A night everyone would remember forever. I mentioned it to my mate who thought I was mad and something untoward had most definitely happened to him. Even after the detail of the balcony was released she was convinced that he'd been thrown over.
I personally find more peace in the fact he did it himself... But maybe that's just my way of sliver lining it!
Ok... So I'm rambling now and I shall shut up, but glad I got that off my chest!
Rest in peace bra knee xxx

 

[Sky face]

I just watched the CCTV footage again. It's awful to watch, buy I think he knows where he is going! He passes bars, shops, he has cash, there's no stopping for a beer, to use a phone box, to find mates!

A random point though, why in the last frame do you think they sped him up at the beginning of the frame??? Perhaps he dawdled... Did something make him hesitate??