The unsolved murder of Wayne Lomas, who was found in a concrete slab under the floorboards of a living room, is as horrifying as it is puzzling. No-one has been brought to justice for the killing despite it being nearly 40 years since he went missing from his house in South Bristol.
Lomas disappeared from his three-bedroom semi-detached house in unusual circumstances on August 30, 1988. Relatives got into his house via an open back window and found the tumble-drier still switched on, his alarm was switched off and his two King Charles Spaniels, Bengy and Roly, in the back garden without food or drink.
Lomas, who was a car dealer, had a criminal record going back years and police had linked him to drug dealing, loan sharking and protection rackets.
His sudden disappearance led to a police investigation with officers alleging he had been abducted and suspecting he had been murdered by gangland rivals.
Following an anonymous call to police five years later, officers swarmed a property in Southville and would find his human remains in a concrete slab weighing more than a ton.
It was later found he had been shot “eight or nine times” with a small-calibre pistol.
A Bristol builder would be charged with his murder but when the case went to Bristol Crown Court in March 1995, no evidence was offered by the prosecution and instead, the builder was accused of helping conceal the body underneath the house.
In the years that followed, there were no further arrests and more than 30 years on from the trial concluding, questions remain unanswered.
Who was Wayne Lomas?
Wayne Lomas.(Image: Internal copyright)
Wayne Lomas was 31-years-old and living in Westleigh Road, Hengrove, at the time of his disappearance.
The bachelor was known to have had a criminal record stretching back years. In an article from November 13, 1997, from the Bristol Evening Post, it said “police had linked him to drug dealing, protection rackets, car ringing and loan sharking”.
Two years before his disappearance, he was a defendant in an attempted murder trial.
In January 1986, Lomas was acquitted of attempted murder after an incident involving a pub-goer on Saturday, April 30, 1985.
Michael Brosnan, at the time aged 35 and from Bedminster, had got into his car outside Biba’s Club in Redcliffe when a man pressed a sawn-off shotgun to his neck and fired.
Mr Brosnan, who survived injuries described as “devastating”, collapsed in his car while driving to the Bristol Royal Infirmary.
He alleged that Lomas had shot him. However a jury acquitted Lomas of the offences after deliberating for less than an hour.
Up until four months before he disappeared, he was working as a car salesman at Rosmi Car Sales in Brislington Hill.
He was last seen alive on August 30, 1988, and in the years that followed his disappearance, his criminal past would be referenced in another trial.
In November 1989, over a year after he disappeared, a murder trial being held at Glasgow High Court heard that Lomas was a drug dealer.
The link was made in the Paul Thorne (who was 26 and of Lawrence Weston) murder trial when one of the defendants, Ricardo Blanco (at the time aged 26 and of Durbin Walk, Easton) said he was shown photographs of drug dealers and that he was questioned about Lomas’ disappearance.
On October 21, 1993, further details would be revealed about Lomas’ home in Hengrove.
An article written at the time said that security cameras were mounted on walls outside his home, there was an intercom system where he could question people at his front door and there was a “plush pink bathroom suite with gold plated-taps”.
The home also featured a fake plug socket in the hallway, which opened to reveal a hidden mini safe.
The home would be bought by an unnamed owner, who was a printer, and his family in 1990.
What happened on the day of his disappearance?
On October 12, 1988, an article which quoted Detective Superintendent Giles Sims, who was head of what was initially a missing person case, said that Lomas was in a police station cell the night before he disappeared.
He had been involved in a fight at a pub and was arrested, being held at Broadbury Road police station.
His sister visited him at his home before he visited his solicitor on St Nicholas Street after he was released from the cell.
There were no other positive sightings of him since he left the solicitor’s office at 3.50pm.
His two King Charles Spaniels, Bengy and Roly, were found in the garden on August 30, 1988, without any food or water.
His tumble-drier was still on, his alarm was turned off, and the back window was open.
A policeman at the time said Lomas could be “wearing a concrete jacket”, giving the impression that police were not convinced he was still alive and theories that a professional assassin had killed him, or that it was linked to gangs, started to be investigated by police. This would foreshadow the gruesome discovery of his body years later.
In October 1988, police received a number of calls from underworld contacts with specific information that claimed Lomas had been murdered.
Mr Sims said at the time that “information suggesting gangland murder has come from named people who have a similar criminal lifestyle to Lomas”.
Some people claimed that he was still alive, including barmen at pubs Lomas was known to often visit and someone who claimed that he was his “minder” in September 1988.
There were raids in South Bristol in November 1988, held at dawn, where seven men were arrested as a 40-person police team swarmed several addresses.
An eighth man would also be arrested. All eight men would be released on police bail.
Concrete slab found under floorboards of property
The outside of a house in Greenbank Road, Southville, where the body of Wayne Lomas was discovered in 1993.(Image: Internal copyright)
Police would receive an anonymous tip-off which led to a series of raids in the Southville and Bedminster area on Thursday, October 7, 1993.
Two people were initially arrested in the raids as five homes were searched, with a further two people also being arrested, on the Friday and Saturday following the raids.
One of these houses, on 17 Greenbank Road, Southville, would prove to contain a grisly discovery.
Underneath the floorboards in the dining room, officers located a huge block of concrete.
Buried several feet under the ground, the slab was found beneath layers of rubble topped with another 18 inches of concrete.
The slab measured six feet by three feet and was excavated with experts chipping away at the block.
A shoe was first found encased within the “tomb”, which pushed experts to keep chipping away and human remains were then found.
The owners of the house, a couple who were on holiday in Spain at the time of the raid, were questioned as witnesses.
The couple, as well as previous tenants, were unaware of the secret lurking underneath the floorboards.
What had been treated as a missing person case until that point was changed to a murder enquiry.
The four people who had been arrested and were being questioned on conspiracy to commit murder were released without charge.
Lomas would eventually be buried in a funeral service in South Bristol on January 21, 1994.
Man charged with Lomas’ murder but no evidence provided
(Image: Internal copyright)
On October 25, 1993, a man would be arrested in connection with the murder of Lomas.
A few days later, he would be charged and named as Richard Browne, 48 and of Knowle, a builder who was accused of murdering the car dealer.
When the case went to trial in March 1995, Browne admitted to helping bury Lomas under the dining room of the Southville property.
The prosecution in the case offered no evidence on a charge alleging Browne had murdered Lomas, but Judge Peter Fallon QC said the charge should lie on file.
Instead, Browne admitted that between August 29 and September 30, 1988, he “made good the structure of the house” knowing that Lomas had been “murdered by people known to him and put in the concrete floor”, as is quoted on March 2, 1995, in the Bristol Evening Post.
He admitted perverting the course of justice and was jailed for two years and eight months, but as he had been in custody on remand for more than 16 months, he was freed immediately.
When Browne was freed, he celebrated by sipping champagne and his barrister said Browne would live the “rest of his life in fear” of whoever carried out the killing of Lomas.
Another man would be arrested shortly after Browne was arrested, but was released on bail.
Mystery remains as police say investigation still open
The case remains cold more than 30 years on after Browne admitted to perverting the course of justice.
In November 1997, Lomas’ mother, Kath Della, issued a heartfelt plea to catch the person responsible for Lomas’ death.
Since that time, no one else has been arrested or charged in the investigation.
At least 14 people have been arrested in connection with this case, eight when it was still treated as a missing person investigation and six when it was a murder investigation, however no one has been held responsible for his murder.
Avon and Somerset Police said the investigation remains open and that the case is routinely reviewed by investigators.
They appealed for anyone with any information which could help to identify those responsible for his death to make contact with the force.
A spokesperson for Avon and Somerset Police said: “Avon and Somerset police never close unsolved murder investigations, which are routinely reviewed by investigators in our Major Crime Review Team (MCRT).
“The team checks archived material for any potential further lines of enquiry and works with forensic experts to assess whether scientific advances could identify new leads from exhibits.
“People can come forward with new information, even years later, and that will be assessed.
“Wayne Lomas was reported missing in 1988, aged 31, and his remains were found buried in concrete in Southville in 1993, five years later, following an anonymous call to police.
“If you have any information which could help to identify those responsible for his death, please contact MCRT officers by calling 101.
“Alternatively ring the independent charity Crimestoppers 100 per cent anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information .”