Trevor Dunkley, 66, pleaded guilty to murder in the death of 33-year-old Patricia Lashley

A man in England has pleaded guilty to murder in the slaying of a mother of seven who vanished nearly 30 years ago.

According to West Midlands Police, Trevor Dunkley, 66, admitted to killing Patricia Lashley, 33, at the home they shared on Hall Street in the town of Dudley in September 1998.

Dunkley entered his plea at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Friday, Sept. 11. He also pleaded guilty to preventing a lawful and decent burial.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 6, police 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,” Homicide Unit Detective Inspector Michelle Cordell said in a news release. “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.”

The admission earlier this year came after an officer went to speak to Dunkley about the murder.

“I killed her,” he allegedly said, per the news release. “I’m sorry.”

He allegedly confessed because he believed police were “onto him,” the news release states.

Dunkley allegedly told police that after coming home from a night shift, he attacked Patricia while she was in bed. He described becoming enraged, saying “the ‘red mist’ had descended,” per the release.

“Standing over Patricia, Dunkley launched a violent physical assault with his fists, killing the 33-year-old,” the release states.

After the killing, Dunkley allegedly said he told Social Services the mom of seven had left him and abandoned one of her children.

“Dunkley stated he then returned home to sleep on the sofa before he went to work that night,” according to the release. “Upon his return he claimed she hadn’t moved and he ‘knew she was dead.’”

He told police he covered her body with bedding and then placed her in the cellar where she remained for approximately one year. He then disposed of her remains in the garbage over several weeks.

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“His actions afterwards are unspeakably cruel,” added Cordell. “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’s barrister, Balbir Singh, told Judge Michael Chambers that Dunkley got rid of Patricia’s skeleton about nine months after he put her in the cellar, the BBC reported.

“When he was moving about nine months to a year later, the skeleton was disposed of into the bins,” Singh added.

According to police, Patricia met Dunkley in the club scene in the mid-1990s. She was reported missing by her sister in June 1999.

At the hearing, Chambers told Dunkley that the sentence for murder is life in prison.

Source: https://people.com/mom-vanished-decades-ago-now-man-admits-killing-her-dumping-remains-trash-12121020