Kathy Burkart, Mawnan inquest records conclusion of suicide

Kathleen Burkart, known to her friends as Kathy, was reported missing by the owners of a farm near Constantine, Linda and Tony Berry, who had known her for 20 years.

They allowed her to park her car at the farm to go for walks on their land with her beloved dogs, until they died, and she would also walk dogs for other people.

When she lost her dogs she continued to go for walks for hours around the woods and fields around the farm which included a disused quarry.

It was said she had a great love for animals who she often put before people.

Linda Berry told an inquest in Truro that Kathy used to leave her keys in the car in case the Berrys needed to move it for any reason.

She said Kathy never liked to walk after dark and had always left the farm by 4pm.

She said she last saw Kathy on November 25 driving up the track to the farm and they stopped and had a chat. She seemed happy and chatty.

They then saw her leaving later the same day and again stopped for a chat and Kathy appeared “bright and cheerful”.

She said the next day November 26 was bad weather being wet and windy but at 2pm Kathy’s car was in its normal place by the barn but she did not see her.

At 3.15pm the car was still there and then at 6pm her son Ian, who Kathy also knew, told his parents that her car was still there. They looked inside and noticed that her car was very tidy. There were no keys seen.

Worried that she may have fallen and injured herself in the bad weather Linda rang her mobile but there was no reply. They contacted their neighbours to see if they had seen her.

Tony and a neighbour drove up the fields looking for her whilst other neighbours joined in the search. Tony and the neighbour noticed a track cut through the brambles to the edge of a disused quarry in the woods. A pair of secateurs were later discovered nearby.

They walked down the track and could see the duck weed on the water had been disturbed but they couldn’t see anything.

At half past seven Linda called 999 and reported Kathy as a missing person.

The police arrived and checked the car. When they lifted a blanket they found Kathy’s keys, mobile phone and an envelope so they searched the area along with the coastguard rescue team.

When the police checked the house in Trevena Gardens, Mawnan Smith they found everything packed up as if she wasn’t coming back and her bank details and last will and testament on the kitchen table.

Search teams were mobilised and a police diver later found Kathy’s body under the water purely by touch as there was no visibility there.

Searches were made throughout the night (Image: West Cornwall Search and Rescue Team)

In a statement read out at the inquest by the coroner Emma Hillson, Mrs Berry said: “Kathy did not really like walking in the woods and was happiest in our fields walking her dogs but cut her walks down when she lost them in 2021.

“As far as I knew she lived in a house with a man who died about a year ago, in an attic upstairs.”

Her sister Sheila Travers told the inquest that they had both been brought up in Broad Street, Penryn and they had both gone to Penryn Primary School and then Penryn Secondary.

As a teenager in the sixties, Kathy went to the Revlon College in London to study to be a beautician. She used to send her sister clothes she had bought in Carnaby Street during the ‘swinging sixties’.

She had been married and divorced and moved back to Cornwall eventually moving back in with her parents until they died and the house sold and the proceeds divided between the two sisters.

She said about 18 years ago she met a man called David Merry initially when walking their dogs. His mother had died and he rented the two spare rooms in the attic of his house in Trevena Gardens to Kathleen.

He became ill and she took over paying all the bills and looked after him although they weren’t in a relationship. He eventually died in 2021.

“Before he died Kathleen said that he had told her that he wanted her to have the house,” said Sheila. “But later he told her that he did not say this and the proceeds from the sale of the house would go to an animal charity.”

She said she last saw her on Tuesday, November 22, 2022 when she was talking about phoning an old friend in London.

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She said up until September 2022 she’d been keeping her up to date with the sale of the house but had been advised by the solicitors to seek advice from her own solicitor.

She used a lady based in Exeter and met her once in Plymouth who took up her case but then contacted her saying she wanted more money to continue the case.

“This seemed to have an effect on her and she just thought of packing up and leaving,” she said. “She seemed to be at the end of her tether.”

Reaching the conclusion that Kathy had taken her own life, the coroner said that Kathy had been taking legal advice on the sale of the house which had caused her to become depressed about where she would live once the property had been sold.

“The legal process was also causing her considerable strain,” she said.

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