The then boyfriend of a mother-of-seven who disappeared in 1998 today pleaded guilty to her murder – after making a shock confession to police and admitting: 'I killed her.'Trevor Dunkley, 66, said he had disposed of Patricia Lashley's decomposed body in a bin months after killing her.In court today, Dunkley also admitted a charge of preventing the lawful burial of Patricia Lashley, who disappeared near her home in Dudley, West Midlands, in September 1998.Asked by Judge Michael Chambers KC if the victim's body had been found, Dunkley's barrister Balbir Singh answered: 'No, because this is 28 years ago and the body was put into the cellar downstairs.'It decomposed. When he was moving about nine months to a year later the skeleton was disposed of into the bins.'Following the hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court, West Midlands Police revealed how Ms Lashley's disappearance was still being investigated when an officer recently went to speak to Dunkley – and he announced: 'I killed her. I'm sorry.'Dunkley, 66, was arrested and interviewed, telling officers of their relationship in the months leading up to 33-year-old Ms Lashley's death. Mother-of-seven Patricia Lashley was last seen near her home in Dudley in September 1998 before she went missing Trevor Dunkley admitted murdering Patricia Lashley during a brief court appearance in Wolverhampton todayHe said the pair had met while Patricia was pregnant and living in Dudley, and soon after, she moved into Dunkley's flat in Hall Street in the Black Country town.Dunkley claimed Patricia had been abusive and violent, culminating in her death in September 1998, although this hasn't been corroborated.On the day of the murder, Dunkley claimed he had returned home after a night shift and had attacked her while she was in bed – saying the 'red mist' had descended.Standing over Ms Lashley, Dunkley launched a violent physical assault with his fists, killing her.Her baby would have been eight months old at the time.After the murder, Dunkley, who was then 38, told detectives he took Patricia's child to Social Services, telling them she had left him and abandoned her baby. He then went to work as normal that night.Dunkley, of Dudley, showed no emotion in the dock today as his barrister, Balbir Singh, told a judge that the charges had been brought following admissions in a police interview. Last month a police van was parked outside the flat where Ms Lashley lived in Hall Street, West Midlands Some of Ms Lashley's relatives were at Wolverhampton Crown Court for the hearing in which Dunkley was remanded in custodyAsked if there was a basis of plea, Mr Singh said of the case: 'It is down to what the defendant told the police when there was no evidence in reality of what had happened.'Police said Dunkley admitted disposing of twice-married Ms Lashley's remains in the household rubbish over a period of several weeks.Dunkley was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on November 6.A former neighbour of the killer today told the Mail he was a 'nice guy' who had gone on to live with his elderly Jamaican father and other relatives in a terraced house in Dudley following the murder.The current owners of the house said they bought the property from Dunkley and his brother in 2008.'We never saw them but they were selling the house after their parents died,' they said. Ms Lashley was last seen at the Hall Street flat on the morning of September 1, 1998, but wasn't reported missing until June 1999 by her sister in South Wales, because she had not heard from her since the previous September.At the time, police were told that she had left home following a row with Dunkley and had been missing before on several occasions for days at a time.During a fresh appeal for information on her whereabouts in 2010, police said Ms Lashley had not appeared on any government systems by claiming benefit or anything else in the years since her disappearance, and had not used her bank account.Following Dunkley's confession this summer, excavations took place at the Hall Street flat where Ms Lashley, who is originally from Newcastle upon Tyne and would now be a 61-year-old grandmother – was last seen.Police spent more than a week working at the address, with rubble bags full of material seen piled up outside.West Midlands Police has previously said Ms Lashley moved to Dudley in the mid-1990s and frequented the No Limits club and other pubs in the area.Several members of Ms Lashley's family were present in the public gallery to see Dunkley enter his pleas today.Detective Inspector Michelle Cordell, from West Midlands Police's Homicide Unit, said: 'This was a truly harrowing case in which a young mother was murdered inside the home she shared with her partner and her baby.'Trevor Dunkley is the only living person who truly knows what happened that day.'He has provided an account of events which, sadly, we cannot corroborate.'What we do know, is that by his own admission, he subjected Patricia Lashley to an sustained and violent assault which led to her death.'His actions afterwards are unspeakably cruel. It is difficult for anyone to comprehend how he could live for so long, knowing what he had done and within the same location he had deposited her body.'His calculated and sophisticated plan to dispose of her remains in household waste took careful planning.'Not only did he deprive Patricia a lawful or decent burial, he robbed her family of the opportunity to lay her to rest.'For decades, they have had to live without answers and with the hope that one day she would return. There can be no justification for his actions.'