Peter Broughton

Peter Broughton

Peter Broughton

Peter Broughton was another passenger with a strong connection to explosives.



Broughton was 29 years old and single. He had a good relationship with his family, which included two brothers and one sister.

His friends described him as intelligent, but reserved and socially isolated.

He "did not care for people who talked too much, and preferred to be by himself," his mother told police.

Broughton had been living in Vancouver and taking night courses to improve his education. Following the crash, his sister told police he had been planning his future career and was quite interested in aviation and electronics.

When he boarded CP Flight 21 he was returning to Cassiar, B.C., where he worked monitoring machinery at a mine.

When he wasn't working or studying, Broughton’s passion and hobby was guns and reloading ammunition. He owned a number of firearms and was the armorer of a gun club in Cassiar.

It was this skill with gunpowder that first caught the attention of police. Their interest deepened as the investigation unfolded.

CBC News met with Ken Leyland, whose late father Cy was the lead investigator for the Department of Transportation in 1965 and worked closely with the RCMP. Cy died 18 years ago, but before he passed he told his son that the RCMP thought Broughton was most likely the person who set off the bomb.

Cy Leyland, second row centre, was the lead investigator for the Department of Transportation in 1965 and worked closely with the RCMP. (Dept. of Transport)

Cy Leyland, second row centre, was the lead investigator for the Department of Transportation in 1965 and worked closely with the RCMP. (Dept. of Transport)

"I asked him point blank, I said 'do you know who did it?' And he said, 'we have a very good idea who the responsible person was,'" Ken Leyland says.



Cy told his son there was a lot of evidence pointing to Broughton, "but it's all circumstantial."

"Broughton had been in Vancouver," Ken says, "and while he was there he went to the Vancouver Public Library and checked out a book on Douglas piston-powered airliners, of which DC-6Bs were one. When the RCMP visited his mother's home, the book was still there along with a one-pound can of 60 per cent natural black gunpowder with approximately four ounces left."

CBC looked into this, and discovered that the details in the police reports did not all line up with those recounted by Cy. While the RCMP did retrieve a number of cans of gunpowder from Broughton’s home, for example, none were the black gunpowder thought to have been used in the bomb.

"Over the past six months [Broughton] had shown a considerable interest in the the construction of aircraft."

Police said there were five books on aviation, none of which were about the Douglas DC-6 specifically, although they noted that, "over the past six months [Broughton] had shown a considerable interest in the the construction of aircraft."

As for motive, according to Cy Leyland, the RCMP believed Broughton may have set off the bomb in a bid for attention.

"One of their working theories with this individual was that he felt the airplane wouldn’t be destroyed ... and he would have his 15 minutes of fame, because he was one of the passengers," Ken says his father told him.

There is nothing in the reports to indicate this is what the RCMP officially believed Broughton’s motive to be. But notoriety is a known motivator for crimes such as this, says Woodworth, the forensic psychologist.

"However, in most of these cases we have some evidence they were planning this, or they made a statement after the fact or beforehand."

Peter Broughton, left, and his family. (Joan Hodgins)

Peter Broughton, left, and his family. (Joan Hodgins)

When asked by police if Broughton would commit this this type of crime, a doctor at the mine where he'd been working said "no," but that "a youth such as Broughton who kept to himself and kept everything to himself would likely commit suicide in this manner to get attention."



What the doctor meant by "youth such as Broughton" is unknown, but it’s clear from the reports that the RCMP were investigating Broughton’s sexual orientation and whether it might have factored into a motive.

"We are exploring the possibility that there was a homosexual love affair," write police in reference to a relationship they suspected Broughton may have had with another man. "If this love affair had been broken off recently, it is known that homosexuals become very despondent when this occurs."

While this notion is understood as prejudice today, in 1965 homosexuality was a criminal offence.

"You have a police culture that is oriented around seeing something wrong with homosexuals," says Gary Kingsman, a professor emeritus at Laurentian university and co-author of the book The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation.

"So there’s this association on the part of the police [that] … there's something wrong with their character. Something vulnerable, something risky, something suspicious."

Later in the investigation the RCMP said they had "failed to enlarge on the suggestion that Broughton was homosexual." But they continued to write that he was the "most logical suspect."

An RCMP document detailing items seized from Peter Broughton's home. (RCMP)

An RCMP document detailing items seized from Peter Broughton's home. (RCMP)

There is one more piece of evidence that Arntfield says raises a red flag that he "cannot get over."

When the RCMP interviewed Broughton’s mother following the the crash, investigators say she told them her son had warned that "there was something dangerous in his room" two nights prior to the crash.

She later denied making this statement to police, but Arntfield believes it may be a key piece of information.

"We don't know if that was a distraction or diversion so that she didn't enter until long after the aircraft had gone down. Maybe It was a note explaining his rationale for doing this, a suicide note of some kind. Maybe it was the device. We don’t know."

Those who knew Broughton best told CBC News they are not convinced that Broughton would ever detonate a bomb and kill himself along with 51 innocent people.

"There is no way, that’s just not something he would do. I’m sure, in my heart I know he wouldn’t do that," says Broughton's sister Joan Hodgins.

Peter Broughton's sister, Joan Hodgins, remembers him as a 'happy kid.' (Richard Grundy/CBC)

Peter Broughton's sister, Joan Hodgins, remembers him as a 'happy kid.' (Richard Grundy/CBC)

"He was a happy kid. He liked to read, he liked his music, he loved hockey. He loved his nieces and nephews. And he was very good to his mom."

In an interview with police in 1965, Joan said she had helped Broughton pack his flight bag prior to leaving and saw nothing suspicious. Even today, she recalls taking him to the airport and how he was in good spirits while there, playing with his niece and nephew before boarding.

"Now you tell me if a person like that would do such a terrible thing to his family," she told CBC.