Virginia couple traveled avidly by small plane

Saturday, December 11, 1999

By JULIE FIELDS
Staff Writer

It was supposed to have been a quick trip for the Brierres: a short hop to New Jersey for a holiday party with a fellow deep-sea fishing enthusiast, then back down to Virginia by midnight to pick up their 8-year-old son.

The impulse to jump on a plane -- whether for a fishing venture in the Bahamas, a duck hunting trip to Canada, or a cocktail party in New York -- was nothing new to Roland T. "Chip" Brierre III and his wife, Cary.

"He'd go anywhere, anytime," said Jimmy Seay, who has worked for Brierre's boat brokerage business in Glen Allen, Va., for three years. "All he needed was the invitation and something to do."

The couple's sense of adventure and love for travel came to an abrupt end Thursday when a twin-engine plane in which they were flying slammed into a quiet neighborhood in Hasbrouck Heights near Teterboro Airport, killing them and another passenger, Elaine Moses, and fatally injuring the pilot, Paul Andrew Pedersen Jr.

Friends and relatives Friday described Pedersen and Chip Brierre, 41, as acquaintances, and said Brierre often had hired the pilot to fly him on business trips, as well as hunting and fishing outings. Moses, who worked as a bookkeeper for Pedersen, joined the trip at the last minute, spurred by the thought of seeing New York lit up for the holidays.

"She wanted to see New York and all. She'd never been there," Seay said.

The plane, a six-seat Beech Baron 58, was borrowed from another of Brierre's friends, Gregory P. Stoneman of Mechanicsville, Va., near Richmond.

The party in New York was hosted by a 73-year-old Englishwoman whom the Brierre's met several years ago while fishing for marlin in Bermuda, said Jeff Black, a close friend of the couple's. The Brierres had planned to return to the Richmond area around 10 p.m. to pick up their son, known as Little Chip or Chip Jr., relatives said.

"Richmond is shocked," Black said. "Chip had many friends in Richmond and throughout Virginia, and so did she."

For those who knew Cary Brierre, the sense of loss is compounded by the knowledge that her father, a prominent banker in Richmond, was killed in 1992 by a suspect fleeing police. "The family's been through tragedy before," Black said.

Louise Brierre, who is married to Chip's father, Roland, said she wasn't surprised the couple had flown to New York for the evening, given Chip Brierre's love of aviation. He logged miles for both business and pleasure, and had taken lessons through Sundance Aviation -- Pedersen's business at Hanover County Airport in Virginia -- to earn his pilot's license.

"It sounded pretty unusual to the rest of us, but for him it was pretty normal," she said.

The Brierres had traveled to the Bahamas a number of times for fishing trips, including an April 1992 outing when they were part of a group of Richmond anglers who caught a 287-pound marlin to win a tournament. Chip Brierre also fished frequently out of Pirate's Cove on the Outer Banks.

Brierre's decade-old business, Commonwealth Boat Brokers, gave him the freedom to pursue his outdoor passions, and introduced him to a network of friends throughout the United States and other countries who shared his interests and owned their own planes and boats. Pictures of Brierre posing next to prize catches or hunting with his Labrador retrievers line the walls of his small office.

The business was employed by banks to repossess boats from Maine to Florida, then market and resell them to new buyers in the United States and Europe. In recent years, Brierre and two employees had handled 300 to 400 boats annually, from rowboats to 30-foot cabin cruisers, Seay said.

Both Brierres were raised in Richmond and attended Virginia colleges -- he at all-male Hampden-Sydney, she at the nearby Longwood College. They met as students.

For most of the 1990s, the couple lived in a two-story colonial in a Richmond neighborhood. A few years ago, they moved to a larger property along a rural stretch of the James River in Charles City, giving their dogs more room to roam.

Dana Long, a former next-door neighbor in Richmond, described Cary Brierre, 40, as a generous spirit and avid gardener who coaxed flowers from all corners of her yard. The two women became close, spending hours outside together with their children.

"She just had a green thumb," Long said. "Everything she touched looked beautiful."

Edward R. Crews, a spokesman for the Brierre family, said in a statement that the family would care for the orphaned boy.

"Our shock has been great. Our grief is deep," the statement said. "The family will deal with our loss in private, taking care of one another and relying on our faith."

Copyright © 1999 Bergen Record Corp.