Self-confessed killer who got away with murder for nearly 30 years was a familiar face in Dudley town centre
Trevor Dunkley was jailed today for life
Dudley killer Trevor Dunkley was a familiar face in the town centre - well known for his love of gold rings and for carrying a large bunch of keys on his waistband.
When news broke that he had in fact been a killer in their midst all these years, the realisation sent ripples of shock through the community and left even those who thought they knew him well enough stumped for words.
Dunkley was sentenced to life in prison today for the 1998 murder of Patricia Lashley, his partner at the time, at the home they shared in Hall Street. He only confessed to the murder in July this year because he feared, in his words, investigators were “onto him”.
He was told he must serve at least 10 years and six months in prison before he can be considered eligible for release.
Ms Lashley’s devastated family including her eldest son Sinan, of Somerset, have over the decades made many public appeals for information about what exactly had happened to her. She was reported missing in 1999 by her sister.
A resident from the local close-knit Caribbean community, who did not want to be named, told the Express & Star this week: “The community is shocked and devastated about what’s happened.”
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They described 66-year-old Dunkley as a “familiar figure” who was known to be a creature of habit over the years. He spent time working as a cleaner at a local bookies and in recent years worked in a town centre discount store.
Some time after he murdered Ms Lashley in September 1998 the defendant moved out of the flat above a row of Victorian-era shops in Hall Street in which, he told a West Midlands Police cold case officer, he killed her, and moved in with his father who has since passed away.
Another resident said: “He kept himself to himself. He held down cleaning jobs at local bookies. He was always a familiar figure in the area.
“He would walk from the top of the town from the Himley Road end where he lived down Wolverhampton Street from about 7am, every day as regular as clockwork.
“He wore gold rings on all his fingers and people would joke about where he bought them. He also carried a massive bunch of keys on his waistband.
“You knew when he was coming before you saw him because you would hear the keys jangling.
“He was a father too.”
As a youngster Dunkley attended Sedgley’s Queen Victoria Primary School.
After his unexpected confession, forensic officers were sent to dig up the cellar where he claimed to have hidden the body before quietly disposing of Ms Lashley’s remains the following year. Investigators shifted through tons of rubble.
Patricia, who was known locally as Pat or Jade and sometimes used the surname Bradford, was reported missing after last being seen near the premises in September 1998. She was aged 33 at the time and was a mother-of-seven with a baby.
She had links to London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Wales and Scotland and was fairly well known in Dudley town centre and in Oldbury at the time. She had moved to Dudley in the mid-1990s and was known to frequent the No Limits club at the bottom of Castle Hill and other pubs.
The site of the murder in the heart of the town centre was in 2012 part of major multi-million pound plans for a new supermarket, shops and multi-storey car park hailed as a scheme which would be paving the way for the town's transformation.
The scheme aimed to redevelop largely derelict land to the east of Hall Street and north of Duncan Edwards Way, including the landmark Cavendish House which was demolished in 2021. New flats are due to replace the former office block at the plot opposite the new bus station.
Hall Street was also the original home of the Black Country Living Museum’s Hobbs &Sons Fish and Chip Shop, which was rebuilt brick by brick at the popular attraction in Tipton Road.