Trevaline Evans was fifty-two years old and ran an antique shop called Attic Antiques on Church Street in Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales. In early June of 1990, she and her husband Richard had been fixing up their vacation house in Rhuddlan, but Trevaline was back at work on June 16th, opening up her store at nine-thirty a.m. as usual.
The day was going by as normally as could be; friends and customers were in and out of the shop all morning, and all reported that Trevaline had been her regular, cheerful self, even telling some of her acquaintances that she had plans to go out that evening after work.
At about twelve-forty p.m., Trevaline was seen talking to a well-dressed man inside the store, and shortly afterward, she left a sign on the front door saying she’d be back in two minutes. According to the later investigation, Trevaline went across the street and bought an apple and a banana; a banana peel was later found in the garbage can at the antique shop, suggesting she had returned there, but this is not known for sure.
After that time, her whereabouts are something of a mystery. Some witnesses claimed to have seen her near her house on Market Street at around two-thirty that afternoon, while others stated they’d seen her five minutes later walking along the A5 towards Corwen. There was also an unconfirmed sighting of a woman matching her description at three forty-five p.m., walking on Park Avenue from the direction of the River Dee.
Trevaline’s dark blue Ford Escort remained parked near the store where she’d left it that morning, and the woman’s purse, keys, and jacket were still in the shop, along with some fruit and flowers that she had purchased to take home later. The store didn’t appear to have been disturbed in any way, and there were no signs of violence anywhere. Trevaline had simply walked out of her shop and completely vanished.
Police launched a massive missing persons investigation, visiting every household in Llangollen and searching any rivers, caves, or mine shafts that Trevaline might have accidentally fallen into. Absolutely nothing was found. Investigators attempted to trace the well-dressed man seen talking to Trevaline in her shop shortly before her disappearance but had no luck there either. Trevaline’s husband Richard was even arrested and questioned but soon released without charge.
Although Trevaline’s remains have never been found, police suspect she was abducted and murdered; it seemed unlikely she had left of her own volition, as her bank account was never accessed after she went missing.
The case was reopened in 2010, at which point authorities announced there might have been a possible connection to convicted serial killer Robin Ligus, who was serving a life sentence for the 1994 murders of three men. In 2012, however, this possible link was ruled out. Robin Ligus died in prison in 2022.
In 2023, a documentary called In the Footsteps of Killers speculated that Trevaline might have been murdered by taxi driver Christopher Halliwell, who in 2012 was convicted of killing twenty-two-year-old Sian O’Callaghan in 2011, and twenty-year-old Becky Godden-Edwards, who had gone missing in 2007 and whose body was discovered after Halliwell’s arrest and confession. Halliwell received a life sentence for his crimes in 2016.
It is still not known what connection, if any, there may be between Christopher Halliwell and the disappearance of Trevaline Evans, which as of April 2024 remains unsolved.
Crime Immemorial 