The discovery of the body of man in his burnt-out car in the Shropshire countryside in 1994 sparked a murder inquiry that was not to be resolved for another 13 years.
Trevor Bradley was a 53-year-old antiques dealer from Ludlow, a man who would go door-to-door buying and selling.Why he had become the victim of murder was a complete mystery. At one time police thought a valuable painting could unlock the secret to the crime.Behind the scenes police continued to try to piece together the circumstances of Mr Bradley’s death. A £1,000 reward was offered and years later his body was exhumed from a cemetery in his home town.
Ligus, a former painter and decorator, was detained in a secure hospital indefinitely following the jurors’ ruling.It was Ligus’s own confessions which proved the most compelling evidence in the trial and eventually led to a jury delivering a verdict of “case proved” at Birmingham Crown Court. Ligus also admitted having committed a fifth murder in which he drowned a man in the River Severn but police had “insufficient grounds” to press charges. The court heard that he was a drug addict in the early 1990s and carried out burglaries across the county to fund his heroin and cocaine habit. Following a stroke in 2003 his health rapidly deteriorated and he was unable to give evidence or even plead in the recent trial.
“I thought, ‘Liverpool next day to score’. I though ‘great’ and er, dragged him into the car. He was only a small bloke so I, I could, managed to lift him into the car, went in the boot. Got a can of petrol. Police probes into Mr Coles’s death were closed less than a year after he died when an inquest concluded he suffered head injuries from a series of falls. The 57-year-old bachelor was found dead on October 14, 1994, at his home in Higher Heath, near Whitchurch. Officers broke in after being alerted by neighbours and a full-scale incident room was set up.
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