Could double murderer Christopher Halliwell be behind another disappearance?

It was the mystery that stunned the nation: Grandma Trevaline Evans vanished into thin air one summer day in 1990 after leaving a note on the door of her antiques shop in the Welsh town of Llangollen reading: “I’ll be back in two.” minutes”.

Now a former carpet fitter has revealed that he saw a stranger in the small town, located on a World Heritage site in Denbighshire, on the day she disappeared, and he bore an uncanny resemblance to double murderer Christopher Halliwell.

The installer, who wishes to remain anonymous, stated that he had seen the man, who was ‘acting strange’, three times during the time of the 52-year-old woman’s disappearance, once the day before she disappeared and twice times the same day. same day.

Speaking to Silent Witness star Emilia Fox and criminologist Professor David Wilson on his cold case investigative series In the Footsteps of Killers, he said: ‘I gave a statement to North Wales Police. The police contacted me several times afterwards but they told me that there was no trace of that vehicle. Had disappeared.

It was June 16, 1990 when Trevaline disappeared. He left his shop, Attic Antiques, around 12:40, showing the note on the door, and went to buy an apple and a banana.

It is not known if he returned to the store, but a banana peel was found in his container. Her bag and jacket were found in the store, along with fruits and flowers that she presumably intended to take home.

The last sighting of Trevaline was near her home in Market Street at 2:30 pm Five minutes later, a woman matching her description was leaving the town on the A5 towards Corwell. There was a similar sighting at 3:45 pm.

Detective Chief Inspector Colin Edwards, who was leading the ongoing investigation, said at the time: “It’s without a doubt the strangest investigation I’ve ever been involved with.” How a happily married woman can disappear without a trace on a sunny Saturday morning in the center of a busy city is totally baffling.

Four men have been linked to her disappearance: Trevaline’s late husband, Richard, who was arrested and released without charge; a ‘smartly dressed man’, who was seen with her the day before she went missing and was never located; serial killer Robin Ligus; and a stranger who looked like the double murderer Halliwell.

The stranger was first seen in Llangollen the day before Trevaline went missing. “He was just off Market Street with a co-worker putting up carpet and we had actually moved the carpet out onto the street,” revealed the installer, who has lived in the city for most of his life.

‘A man walked down Market Street but did not engage with us at all. He was acting strange actually. We had a full view of him. He was quite tall and had big eyes, I remember big, fixed eyes. He turned and walked down Market Street.

The next morning, she saw him again. “She was coming up Horseshoe Pass around 7:45,” she added. “There was a motorhome parked at the edge and when I got closer the same man I saw on Friday night got out of the motorhome.

“It was definitely the same guy I had seen on Friday night. He was wearing the same clothes and I thought it was very strange where he was parked because on the opposite side there was a parking area where he could have parked but actually he was on the edge of the grass looking at the scenery.

The last sighting was when Trevaline went out to buy fruit. The van was parked in the parking lot of the Kwik Save supermarket, two minutes from the store.

“I saw his vehicle later that day,” he added. I would say it was 12:30. When I got back to Llangollen I was passing what was then the Kwik Save, at the end of the car park I saw the same vehicle that I had seen that morning parked in the bay in the supermarket car park.

Halliwell, a Swindon taxi driver, was sentenced to life in prison in 2016 after admitting to murdering 20-year-old Becky Godden-Edwards in 2003 while being questioned about the murder of another young woman, 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan. , in 2011.

He led the police to where he had buried the body, but a High Court judge initially ruled the evidence inadmissible in court because Detective Chief Inspector Steve Fulcher, who was leading the investigation, failed to warn him beforehand.

The police officer then discovered a secret women’s clothing store, which Halliwell is believed to have kept as trophies of his murders: only two of the 60 items have been identified: a cardigan worn by Becky and a high-heeled boot. that Sian used before. she was kidnapped.

Fox said on the show: “Christopher Halliwell worked in the local area, a witness saw him in town the day Trevaline disappeared, and we know he was a master at disposing of bodies.”

Fox and Wilson also tracked down an ex-girlfriend of Trevaline’s brother Philip, Linda, who identified him as the “smartly dressed man”, explaining that he was not recognized because he worked in Budapest, Hungary. He died 14 years ago.

She met him on Monday June 18, two days after Trevaline’s disappearance, in the Jenny Jones pub where she worked, and dated him for five years.

“I met him on Monday night and from there he felt like he could tell me everything that was going on,” she added. He opened her heart to me.

Linda revealed that contrary to reports at the time, Trevaline’s marriage was on the rocks. “She was not in a happy marriage,” she admitted. ‘She wasn’t happy at all.

Richard was not well liked at all. Since I worked at Jenny Jones, he would come in and just want to talk to me. Maybe I was naive enough not to understand that maybe he was trying to figure out what was going on with me being with Phil.

It was always the same, the same embarrassed expression. His face never changed. He never ever said: “I don’t understand why he left. Is she with someone else? Has he run away? He never told me that he loved her. She never said, “Lynne, you don’t realize how much I miss her.” Nothing.

Phil came by one night and said there were rugs coming out of the house and a couple pieces of furniture. If he’s waiting for her to come home, she’s not going to be happy, is the furniture and rugs going to come out of the house?’

Wilson also discovered that her husband, who had been renovating the couple’s holiday bungalow near the coast in Rhuddlan, had been seen in Llangollen at the time of his wife’s disappearance, despite waiting until 11pm. to report her missing, and he had a reason: she had inherited £10,000 from one of her former lovers.

“I’ve done some more digging and have also been able to establish from a contact in North Wales Police that he even inherited £10,000 from one such lover who passed away,” he added.

“There is also an opportunity because I found out from my contacts with the police that he was back in Llangollen sooner than we previously thought. He was seen in the pub at 2:30pm, shortly before the last reported sighting of Trevaline.

‘It could all be circumstantial evidence in relation to Richard because there is no definitive evidence yet. No crime scene, no body, no forensic evidence to link him to Trevaline’s murder, but I can’t rule it out.

In the Footsteps of Murderers: The Disappearance of Trevaline Evans is available on Channel 4.