She picked up a passenger for a two-mile fare. He beat her to death then dumped her body

Linda Thomas was a happy and popular young woman who dreamed of striking it lucky on the football pools. She wanted to buy a big house on the hillside overlooking her native Port Talbot and fill it with cats and dogs. It was the evil of one man that ripped her hopes, her ambitions, and indeed her life away from her. Linda enjoyed listening to Cliff Richard and The Hollies, relished having a shandy with her mates, and had a fondness for animals. She worked as a taxi driver, which was an uncommon profession for a woman in the early 1970s. It was this role which would lead the 22-year-old to encounter Trevor Howell. Howell was raised in the same town as Linda though he was six years her senior. He was reportedly considered an intelligent young man as a child and a diligent worker on his grandparents' farm near Margam. In later life he was characterised as a "roamer" who drifted from town to town and casual job to casual job. He was also a child sex offender with a propensity for violence and an extensive criminal record. The lives of these vastly different individuals intersected on the afternoon of Thursday, June 20, 1973, when Linda collected Howell in her cab for what ought to have been a brief journey up the Afan Valley. But the taxi driver would never make it home. The killing of the young woman sent shockwaves through Port Talbot and dominated headlines across south Wales and further afield. Linda grew up in Port Talbot's Sandfields area and attended the local secondary school. She subsequently enrolled on a clerical course at college with aspirations of becoming a shorthand typist but instead took up a position at a local laundry before passing her driving test and taking on a driving role for the company. Then, in early 1973, she embarked on a career as a taxi driver – a rather unconventional profession for a woman at the time. By June of that year Linda, who lived with her mother in Harlequin Road in Port Talbot, was working diligently at a job she loved and putting money aside for a holiday to Spain with a friend. Shortly after 2pm on June 20 the landlady of Port Talbot's Hong Kong pub telephoned the firm Linda worked for to arrange a taxi for a customer who needed to travel to Cwmavon – just over two miles up the Afan Valley – to purchase a second-hand car. That passenger was 28-year-old Howell, who was reported to have a "wad of money" tucked inside his jacket pocket. Howell had also grown up in Port Talbot but had become something of a wanderer, drifting from place to place and taking on a range of casual work – from scrap metal dealing to hotel kitchen cooking, building labouring, farm work, and fairground employment. He was no stranger to the prison system either having completed his most recent sentence just eight months previously. He hadn't set foot in the Hong Kong for a couple of years and had told staff he had been working as a sheep shearer in Australia though this was untrue. On that particular day he had consumed six or seven pints of beer along with whiskies and had apparently also taken a number of mandrax and dexedrine tablets during visits to several pubs around the town. Linda collected her fare from the pub and the pair set off for Cwmavon. Precisely what unfolded over the following couple of hours remains a mystery but the cab was spotted by a witness in Maesteg – more than 10 miles from its intended destination. When Linda failed to return to the taxi office her employer grew concerned and contacted her family to establish whether she had gone home but they too had not seen her. As anxiety over her wellbeing mounted the police were called. Later that day Linda's dark blue Singer Gazelle taxi was discovered abandoned on the grass verge of Afan Way in Sandfields. Police began piecing together her movements throughout the day, establishing that an hour after departing the pub the taxi had been spotted on the Bryn to Maesteg road. What officers knew – but initially kept from the public – was that two of Linda's false teeth had been recovered from the abandoned vehicle, suggesting she had been subjected to significant violence. But what had become of her? Had she been abducted? Was she being held captive? Was she lying injured somewhere? Or had she lost her life? Officers launched two major search operations – one for Linda and another for Howell, whom police believed could hold the key to unlocking the case. Before long more than 100 officers from across south Wales were scouring the hills, woodland, and country lanes between Port Talbot and Maesteg in search of Linda as well as looking in the sand dunes at Kenfig Burrows and common land around Porthcawl. They were joined by scores of RAF mountain rescue specialists, forestry workers, police cadets, and community volunteers. Divers from South Wales Police's sub-aqua unit were deployed to search Port Talbot docks, Eglwys Nynnyd reservoir, and drainage culverts on Baglan Moor. Forensic experts began cross-referencing ferns and grass found on the underside of Linda's car with vegetation from mountain lanes around Port Talbot in the hope of narrowing down potential search locations. While the search for Linda was proving fruitless detectives were quickly closing in on their main suspect. It transpired that on the evening Linda vanished Howell had purchased a grey and red Commer Cob van from a garage in Baglan for £19 in cash, informing the owner he needed something "to knock about with on the farm". Welsh officers contacted counterparts in Kent to examine a travellers' site in Orpington where Howell was known to have stayed recently but there had been no sightings of him there. The search for the prime suspect then dramatically shifted to Sussex following news the Commer van had been sold at a scrapyard with the Evening Post reporting that a team of 10 Welsh detectives was sent to Brighton to pursue the lead. The officers – whom the newspaper reported "mingled with hippies on the seafront" – uncovered that Howell had previously spent considerable time in the seaside town. There were accounts of him sleeping on the beach and being spotted "sunbathing" in overalls. Howell, who was recognised by the "hippies" as Taffy, had apparently claimed to them he was a rally driver. South Wales Police detective chief superintendent Maddy Williams stated at the time: "If this is our man we are not far behind him." Although the suspect remained frustratingly beyond their reach officers did – in a rather peculiar turn of events – recover his shoes after he exchanged them with "local hippies" having told them his footwear was causing him discomfort. The shoes were dispatched to Wales for forensic examination. Detectives also discovered Howell had attempted to sell a Seiko diving watch at a Brighton jewellery shop – a move investigators believed suggested he was becoming short of funds – and had sought employment at both a hotel and a transport firm. Officers further established the suspect had cropped his hair and changed his outfit – he was now sporting "a dirty eggshell blue shirt, chocolate-coloured trousers frayed at the bottom, and black heavy duty boots". As the manhunt for Howell continued along the south coast back in Port Talbot his father Thomas – a driver for local bus firm Red and White – issued a public plea for his son to come forward. He said: "I have been worried sick and appeal to Trevor wherever he is to come forward to the police. If he knows anything about the girl I would like him to tell the police. I would like him to go to them anyway." Meanwhile the search for Linda continued and a week after her disappearance an Army helicopter from Netheravon in Wiltshire was deployed to assist although initial efforts to utilise it were hampered by adverse weather conditions. Then on June 29, nine days after Linda went missing, came the news the Port Talbot community had been dreading. Linda's body was discovered by dog walker William Harrison, a Port Talbot steelworker, in an airshaft of a disused mine off Lady's Walk forestry track on Baglan mountain. She was lying face-up and had been covered in what was described as a "blanket" of stones. Detective chief superintendent Williams said: "It is obvious she was pushed down there. Even if there had been a manual search we would never have found her. There is deep vegetation there and the shaft is completely out of sight." A subsequent post-mortem examination revealed Linda had sustained broken ribs and tears to her liver, spleen, and bowel. There were no injuries to her skull and no evidence of any sexual assault. Police had located Linda and within days they had identified their suspect following a tip-off from officers – though not from Brighton but from Pembrokeshire. Howell was arrested while working on a potato farm near Milford Haven. The suspect was charged with murder and entered a not guilty plea and in November 1973 a week-long trial commenced at Swansea Crown Court. The prosecution's case maintained that Howell inflicted "gross physical violence" upon Linda before disposing of her body in the mine. Pathologist Dr Owen Glyn Williams informed the court that considerable force, such as kicking or stamping, would have been necessary to cause the injuries the young taxi driver suffered. The jury was presented with testimony from two women who had been walking with their grandchildren on the day Linda vanished and who spotted a taxi in Lady's Walk. They said there was a man at the wheel and a "young and attractive" woman seated beside him in the passenger seat. The witnesses reported the passenger remained silent and motionless with her face appearing blank and expressionless. Howell admitted striking Linda while they were in the taxi but claimed he had no memory of transporting her body to the mine. Michael Williams QC, for the prosecution, suggested to the defendant that he had intended to cause Linda serious harm. The defendant responded: "The only thinking I can think of is it started with slapping her in the car." When it was suggested to Howell that he had been fully conscious of his actions when he inflicted "terrible violence" upon his victim he answered: "No, sir, I can't remember." He told the court he had consumed mandrax and dexedrine tablets as well as drinking up to nine pints of beer and three or four whiskies on the day in question. Howell recalled being a passenger in the taxi and conversing with someone but described the experience as though "it was as if I was watching myself talking and somebody was doing the talking for me – it was as if I was in a world of my own". When questioned by his barrister, Aubrey Meyerson QC, the defendant stated: "It was as if I'm talking to you now but I was watching myself talking to you. The next thing I recall is hitting her with my hand or my fist." He went on to say: "I knew I had done wrong but I didn't know the extent to which I had done wrong... I knew I had done wrong but I was so much confused I didn't worry about it. I suppose I panicked. I got this car and left the area. I still felt in a drunken mood but I knew more or less what I was doing and saying." Howell disclosed that he drove to Brighton that same evening where he stayed in a squat with acquaintances. He revealed that upon subsequently spotting a photograph of himself in a newspaper alongside a police appeal for information he made the decision to flee. In his closing address to the jury Howell's barrister argued: "You may have thought that Howell both by his behaviour and by the testament he gave exhibited a degree of callousness that would be hard to equal and how he did not really give any consideration as to the fate of that poor girl once the realisation dawned on him that something had happened to her. You are not trying him for cold-bloodedness or callousness. You are not here to try him for his emotions or his inability to express himself." The 11-man jury found Howell guilty of murder. The judge, Mr Justice Wein, addressed the defendant: "The jury have unanimously convicted you of the brutal murder of a completely innocent young woman. I am satisfied you were bent on sexual assault. I regard you, on the information I have, as a person who is likely to be a danger to women for an indefinite period. I make no recommendation to the home secretary but undoubtedly what I have said will be noted." Howell received a life sentence and as he was led down to the cells a woman in the public gallery cried out: "I hope she haunts you." Following his conviction it could be disclosed that Howell had 15 prior convictions including for burglary, theft, sexual offences involving a 14-year-old girl in the London area, and inflicting grievous bodily harm on a woman in Brighton – an assault which left his victim with a broken jaw. He had been freed from his most recent prison term in October 1972. It also came to light that just six days before he killed Linda he had been charged in connection with a serious assault on a woman in Porthcawl and, despite police objections, he had been granted bail by magistrates in Bridgend and walked out of court. Howell died in Norwich prison in August 2017 aged 72 with the cause of death recorded as sepsis, pneumonia, chronic obstructive airway disease, and general frailty caused by severe mixed dementia. The prison organised, and funded, his funeral. Get daily breaking news updates on your phone by joining our WhatsApp community here . We occasionally treat members to special offers, promotions and ads from us and our partners. See our Privacy Notice .