Flynn brothers still searching for their mom

By Stephen Baxter, Santa Cruz Sentinel

SANTA CRUZ — The voice of Deanna Brooks, a 70-year-old Santa Cruz antiques dealer, came to her son in a dream last week.

Brooks has been missing since August 2012, the day she was expected to drive from her home on Berkeley Way in Santa Cruz to her mother’s home in San Diego County.

“The dream was a phone call and I was talking to her,” said Stirling Flynn, Brooks’ oldest son.

“Her voice was so clear. I said ‘Do you know you’re missing?’ And she said, ‘I am? I’m at 1230 Benson Avenue in Santa Cruz.’ ”

Flynn, a 51-year-old who grew up in the Santa Cruz Mountains and now lives in Georgia, hadn’t heard of Benson Avenue. After he woke from his dream on June 12, he immediately looked up the address online.

Benson Avenue is near Thurber Lane, but the address does not exist. One of Stirling Flynn’s relatives was in Santa Cruz on Saturday and went to the street, but found nothing.

“It made me miss her,” Flynn said of the dream.

This week marked nearly nine months since Brooks was last seen. Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark said there were no new leads.

Brooks was last seen Aug. 24, 2012, the day she planned to drive her gold Chrysler PT Cruiser to Southern California.

The car has not been found, and her bank account has remained idle since her disappearance, police said. Clark said police have monitored her finances since the case began.

“I just can’t imagine that she disappeared without a trace,” Clark said.

He and other authorities believe Brooks might have driven off a highway as she drove south.

Taylor Flynn, Brooks’ 49-year-old son who lives in Lake Tahoe, said he shared that belief. He and other family members searched highways for hundreds of miles in the weeks after Brooks was reported missing.

The brothers talked to pilots of small planes, several law enforcement agencies and ordinary residents as they distributed fliers.

Taylor noted that Brooks’ neighbor on Berkeley Way said she talked to Brooks the morning she was supposed to leave. Brooks, a diabetic, said she wasn’t feeling well and went inside.

Brooks’ PT Cruiser was gone that evening, hours after she originally intended to leave.

Taylor Flynn said he believed Brooks died in a car crash.

“Everyone has their gut feeling,” Taylor Flynn said Tuesday. “I think she probably drove off the road somewhere. She left later than anyone thought she would leave. It would have been dark.”

Brooks is about 5 feet 3 inches with brown hair and green eyes. She uses a walker.

In part because of the publicity about Brooks’ case — and the fact that Taylor wrote about it in his Tahoe Mountain News publication — Taylor said people often ask him about his mother’s case.

“I have a feeling my mom is in a good place,” he said.

Santa Cruz police ask anyone with information to call investigations at (831) 420. 5820 or the anonymous tip line at (831) 420.5995.