The ex-lover of the killer Ben Lacomba has revealed he stalked her days before he murdered mother-of-five Sarah Wellgreen.
Barmaid Leanne Edwards, 32, said she hopes the twisted taxi driver ‘rots in jail’, a day after he was caged for life.
Beautician Ms Wellgreen’s body has never been found – adding to the heartbreak of her family – and Lacomba refuses to tell anyone where he took her.
And now Ms Edwards has said she feels lucky to be alive after Lacomba, 39, ‘could have killed me’.
Barmaid Leanne Edwards, 32, said she hopes the twisted taxi driver ‘rots in jail’, a day after he was caged for life
She told the Sunday People: ‘I hope he rots in jail and never gets out.’
She said Lacomba tried to control her during their one-year relationship and after they broke up he called her and lingered outside her house in the dark.
Ms Edwards said: ‘He tried to contact me only a few months before Sarah’s murder. I rang my neighbour and asked them to do me a favour and keep an eye out for me.
‘I had a weird feeling. As I walked home she rang me and described Ben’s car and what he looked like.’
Ms Edwards has said she feels lucky to be alive after Lacomba, 39, ‘could have killed me’
Ms Edwards, who met Ms Welllgreen, 46, and Lacomba when she lodged at their house in New Ash Green, Kent, in 2010, felt unsafe to go home, with incidences being played out up until Ms Wellgreen’s death.
The barmaid added that she feels she could have been killed and is ‘lucky to be alive’.
She did not speak to the couple for three years after moving out, but Lacomba gave her a lift in his cab one night after he had broke up with Ms Wellgreen.
Ms Edwards said the killer, who still lived with Ms Wellgreen and their three children, would use his taxi to try to pick up vulnerable women.
She said she felt vulnerable as the tenth anniversary of her mother’s death loomed and invited him in – and ‘one thing led to another’ and they dated.
Unnerving interview footage released yesterday shows Lacomba being questioned by police and asked: ‘Did you kill her?’
Rather than say ‘no’, or ‘no comment’, Lacomba sits perfectly still and remains absolutely silent.
One of Ms Wellgreen’s sons on Friday pleaded to know where his mother’s body lies during emotional statements to court.
After looking at Lacomba in the dock, Lewis Burdett told the court: ‘All I have wanted is to know where my mum is so I can lay her to rest. Rest in peace, Mum. I love you.’
Ben Lacomba stayed silent as he was questioned over his then-missing, now presumed dead, ex Sarah Wallgreen, who he murdered because he didn’t want her to move out
Ben Lacomba has been convicted of murdering his ex partner Sarah Wellgreen, who has not been seen since she returned home from work on October 9 last year
Lacomba and Ms Wellgreen pictured together during their 10-year relationship. He became ‘bitter and controlling’ after they split, the murder trial heard
Lacomba was ordered to serve at least 27 years before he can apply for parole and, under new laws, may struggle to ever be freed unless he reveals where he put her body.
Lacomba could be subjected to the proposed ‘Helen’s Law’, named after murder victim Helen McCourt, which forces the Parole Board to consider whether killers have told authorities where they left their victims.
In what has been described as a ‘highly unusual case’, extensive searches have not located a body and no forensic evidence was uncovered.
Police built a ‘compelling case’ that the only suspect was Lacomba and have vowed to continue to try to locate her body.
Lacomba was said to be ‘angry, bitter and controlling’ when he hatched a ‘deliberate, planned and careful’ plot to murder his former lover.
He was aware Ms Wellgreen planned to buy him out of their home in the Kent village of New Ash Green after winning a custody battle over their three young children.
Twice-married Ms Wellgreen had two adult sons from a previous relationship. They offered to help her obtain a mortgage to own the property outright.
Lacomba knew he would then have limited contact with their children and so decided to kill her and bury the body in the Kent countryside, police believe.
Ms Wellgreen’s adult son, Lewis Burdett told the court yesterday he just wants to know where his mother is buried
Lacomba is thought to have drowned Ms Wellgreen in the bath early on October 10 last year before driving her body away in his distinctive red Vauxhall Zafira taxi.
He may have dug her grave days before her murder. What was described as a 5½ft ‘gravediggers’ shovel was found in his shed.
Several members of Sarah’s family, including her mum Anne Reid and eldest children Lewis Burdett, 23, and his 22-year-old brother Jack, attended court yesterday.
Emotional victim personal statements were heard during proceedings, with Mr Burdett, now a serving soldier, choosing to read his own.
Lacomba may only be released if he reveals where he hid Ms Wellgreen’s body
Glancing at Lacomba in the dock, he said his world ‘fell apart’ and that he still picked up the phone in the hope of speaking to his mother.
‘Being in the Army has changed me and turned me into the man you see today. I know my mum would be so proud of what I have achieved and I wish she could see me in my uniform,’ added Lewis.
‘I love her with all my heart. My heart aches for her. All I want is my mum back. Knowing there is nothing I can do makes me feel dead inside.’
Judge Christopher Kinch QC told Lacomba he had carried out ‘a thoroughly wicked plan, executed entirely for selfish interests and without any thought for the dreadful consequences’ for Sarah’s children.
He said: ‘This murder was no crime of passion or momentary outburst of violence. It was, I am sure, a planned and calculated operation that developed as it became clear Sarah Wellgreen’s plans were to raise a mortgage and buy out your stake in the property.
‘I cannot be sure you planned the murder over many months but your consideration and calculation clearly took some time.
‘Above all, I am sure you must have identified a site for the disposal of her body in advance.
‘Your careful and unobserved departure from the house at night, the purposeful drive to an undisclosed location and your equally careful return home in the early hours of the morning are consistent only with a significant degree of planning and forethought.’
Footage shows Sarah Wellgreen driving away from the car park outside her home in New Ash Green in Kent on the morning of October 9 last year. She returned that evening and has not been seen since
During a four-week trial, a jury at Woolwich Crown Court heard how Lacomba claimed to have bought the shovel as a Christmas gift for his pain-ridden mother Marilyn, 66.
Lacomba may now be subjected to the proposed ‘Helen’s Law’, named after Helen McCourt, whose killer Ian Simms refused to offer reveal the whereabouts of her body in 1988.
A Bill on Helen’s Law was brought before Parliament earlier this month, making it a legal requirement for the Parole Board to take into account a killer’s failure to disclose the location of their victim’s remains when considering them for release.
Courts can also hand down tougher sentences for murderers who deliberately conceal the location of a body.
In the hunt for Ms Wellgreen, police trawled 22,000 hours of CCTV footage seized from houses, businesses and streets within a five-mile radius of her home, as specialist teams carried out almost 2,000 searches of the area.
Lacomba tried to discredit the former bank manager by telling police in a ‘missing person’ 999 call on October 11 that she led a ‘weird life’ and was cheating on several men.
Speaking after Lacomba was found guilty, Detective Chief Inspector Ivan Beasley said: ‘We still haven’t found Sarah and that is a massive gap in their life.
‘The fact they’ve not been able to understand exactly what happened to Sarah, where she is, and be able to lay her to rest in their way is really, really causing a big impact on the family.
‘There is one person that knows where Sarah is and he won’t tell us.
‘He won’t tell us to enable us to find her for his children who desperately want to know what happened to their mum.’
In a 999 call after he killed Ms Wellgreen, Lacomba tried to throw police attention towards her new boyfriend, Neil James (pictured), the court heard