A man has pleaded guilty to murdering a mother of seven who disappeared 28 years ago after telling police he disposed of her decomposed body months after killing her.
Patricia Lashley disappeared near her home in Dudley, West Midlands, in September 1998.
Trevor Dunkley, 66, also admitted a charge of preventing her lawful burial.
Appearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Dunkley, from Dudley, showed no emotion in the dock as his barrister, Balbir Singh, told a judge that the charges had been brought following admissions in a police interview.
Asked by Judge Michael Chambers KC if the victim’s body had been found, Mr Singh answered: ‘No, because this is 28 years ago and the body was put into the cellar downstairs.
‘It decomposed. When he was moving about nine months to a year later the skeleton was disposed of into the bins.’
Patricia Lashley was last seen near herhome in Dudley in September 1998
Last month a police van was parked outside the flat where Ms Lashley lived
Asked if there was a basis of plea, Mr Singh said of the case: ‘It is down to what the defendant told the police when there was no evidence in reality of what had happened.’
Dunkley, appearing in the dock wearing round-rimmed glasses and a grey sweater, was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on November 6.
West Midlands Police previously said Ms Lashley moved to Dudley in the mid-1990s and frequented the No Limits club and other pubs in the area.
Several members of Ms Lashley’s family were present in the public gallery to see Dunkley enter his pleas today.
Her family made a fresh appeal to trace Ms Lashley, who would now be 61 and a grandmother, in 2017.
Police had earlier said it was understood she and Dunkley knew one another.
The West Midlands force said Ms Lashley was known locally as Pat or Jade, and had been known to have links to London, Newcastle, Wales and Scotland. She also used the names Vanessa and Tricia, as well as the surname Bradford.
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