A HEARTBROKEN mum who insists her son was murdered has hired two former Brit detectives to crack the case.
Brett Dryden, 35, was found dead at his home in the lush resort town of Mojacar, Spain last July.
Dryden’s mother, Sandra Adams, has now hired Sam Hutchinson and Emma Coles of Verity Henton Private Investigations to probe the mysterious death.
Sandra, 56, from Chester-le-Street in County Durham, told the Mirror: “They have ex-police inspectors [in Spain]. They are setting a clear line of investigation.”
She is now fighting to force a Spanish judge to reopen the case into her son’s death.
Her son ran a legal cannabis club called The Dawg House.
TRAGIC DEATH
Mum dies after plunging from tower with twins, aged 3, a day after birthdays
Sandra said: “He had an amazing life there. He loved it. He had loads of friends and said he would never move back.”
On that fateful day last July, Sandra received a call from one of Brett’s friends in Spain who had found his body in his villa.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” she said.
“My world caved in, I was in utter disbelief and I’m still in shock today.”
In a daze, Sandra and her husband and Brett’s stepdad Rob flew to Spain that day.
Spanish cops believe he was killed during a robbery at his Costa de Almeria home as he prepared to buy and sell marijuana.
One of the friends who found Brett claimed he’d overheard the Spanish police known as the Guardia Civil saying they believed Brett had been struck in the head with an axe.
However, the friends had been allowed to walk through the villa several times, which was potentially a murder scene.
Sandra was immediately sceptical of the police’s findings.
Her new private investigators Hutchinson, 57, and Coles, 41, are former Essex Police anti-corruption officers who launched their agency in April 2020.
Their involvement comes just days after reports that a Home Office pathologist carried out a new post mortem and rejected the findings of a Spanish expert.
The Spanish post mortem claimed the dad-of-one died from pulmonary haemorrhage, despite finding a four-inch gash on his head.
They also claimed that his body tested positive for cocaine and cannabis.
Police said there were no signs of a struggle and that bloody footprints stopped where his body was discovered.
Dryden also suffered a four inch head wound.
Sandra said: “I knew in my gut that something was not right.
“He had other visible injuries. To me it looked like there had been a struggle.”
Dr Cooper, an honorary consultant at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, said in his report: “I am not in the least persuaded by the cause of death offered by the pathologist in Spain.”
He said changes found in Brett’s lungs were non-specific and “in no way suggest an adverse drug reaction”.
He added that an external examination showed bruising on Brett’s forehead, dark abrasions on his elbows and knees and contusions on his torso and legs which were “consistent with having been assaulted”.
Sandra is demanding a fresh inquiry after receiving a Spanish police report that includes CCTV showing two men in caps and face coverings running from her son’s house with two bags.
One is thought to contain more than £7,000 in cash and the other is believed to be filled with marijuana.
Despite this, the judge handling the case “provisionally” closed it in September, ruling there was nothing to show Dryden had been killed or enough evidence to put anyone on trial.