Trevaline Evans

Case background and investigation

Trevaline Evans, a 52-year-old grandmother, ran Attic Antiques on Church Street in Llangollen, Denbighshire. On Saturday, June 16, 1990, she opened the shop as usual at 9:30 a.m. According to the Hue and Cry case summary, about 25 people called or visited during the morning and she appeared relaxed, with plans to go out that evening.

At about 12:40 p.m. she left the shop and put a note on the door saying she would be back in two minutes, the Denbighshire Free Press reported. At around 1 p.m. she was seen buying an apple and a banana and crossing Castle Street. The last confirmed sighting was near her home on Market Street at about 2:30 p.m.; two later reports of a woman resembling her were never confirmed. The BBC reported that her handbag was left inside the shop and her car was still parked about 200 yards away.

North Wales Police mounted a large inquiry. According to the BBC, officers took more than 330 statements, checked 1,500 names and logged and eliminated 685 cars. The Mirror reported that no money was ever taken from her bank account. Sightings reported in Australia, London and France were followed up, and searches were carried out along the canal and in woodland at World's End, the Free Press reported, without result.

The case was reopened in January 2001 in the hope that new forensic methods might help. Later that year her husband, Richard Evans, then 72, was arrested and questioned and was released without charge, according to the BBC. He died years later without ever being charged. Her brother, Len Davies, has said he believes she was abducted. North Wales Police has said the investigation has never been closed.

In 2019, acting on claims by two brothers that they had filmed remains beneath the floor of Rhuddlan Golf Club, near the family's holiday bungalow, police dug up part of the club but found nothing, the Mirror reported. Anonymous plaques referring to the golf club later appeared on benches in 2021 and 2022; no link to her disappearance has been established. Channel 4 revisited the case in a 2023 documentary series, and the Free Press reported in 2024 that another television crew had filmed in the town. Trevaline Evans has never been found, and no one has been charged in connection with her disappearance.