Revealed: Face of murderer who killed his partner at their Black Country home then covered it up for 28 years

This is the face of a Dudley man who today finally admitted murdering a mother-of-seven nearly 30 years ago.

Trevor Dunkley killed Patricia Lashley at the home they shared in Hall Street, Dudley, in September of 1998 when he was 38 and she was 33.

Dunkley, now 66, has confessed attacking Ms Lashley as she lay in bed after he returned home from a night shift, saying a “red mist” had descended.

Standing over his victim, Dunkley launched a physical assault with his fists.

After the murder, Dunkley told detectives he took Ms Lashley’s child to social services, telling them she had left him and abandoned her baby.

Dunkley said he then returned home to sleep on the sofa before he went to work that night. Upon his return he claimed Ms Lashley hadn’t moved and he “knew she was dead”.

He later covered her body with bedding and took her down to the cellar where she lay for around a year before Dunkley disposed of her remains in household waste over several weeks.

Police say it is unlikely her remains will ever be found.

According to Dunkley, he decided to confess now, nearly 30 years after robbing her family of the chance to lay her to rest, because he feared police were “onto him”.

He pleaded guilty at Wolverhampton Crown Court today (Friday, September 11) to murder and preventing a lawful and decent burial.

Ms Lashley, who also used the names Jade, Vanessa and Tricia as well as the surname Bradford, had moved to Dudley in the mid-1990s and frequented the No Limits club and other pubs in the area, which is how she came to meet Dunkley.

She was reported missing by her sister in June 1999 and in the years following her disappearance West Midlands Police published regular appeals online and in the media to try and find her.

The force’s Missing People Review Team investigated public records and the accounts of people who knew her at the time in the hope she had moved away from the area.

The case was still being investigated when one West Midlands Police officer recently went to speak to Dunkley.

During this visit, he made the shock confession, telling the officer: "I killed her. I'm sorry".

Detective Inspector Michelle Cordell, from West Midlands Police’s Homicide Unit, said: "This was a truly harrowing case in which a young mother was murdered inside the home she shared with her partner and her baby.

"Trevor Dunkley is the only living person who truly knows what happened that day.

"He has provided an account of events which, sadly, we cannot corroborate.

"What we do know, is that by his own admission, he subjected Patricia Lashley to a sustained and violent assault which led to her death.

"His actions afterwards are unspeakably cruel. It is difficult for anyone to comprehend how he could live for so long, knowing what he had done and within the same location he had deposited her body.

"His calculated and sophisticated plan to dispose of her remains in household waste took careful planning.

"Not only did he deprive Patricia a lawful or decent burial, he robbed her family of the opportunity to lay her to rest.

"For decades, they have had to live without answers and with the hope that one day she would return. There can be no justification for his actions."

Dunkley will be sentenced on November 6 and has been remanded in custody until that date.