‘I’ve got to find her’: Son’s fight to find murdered mother’s body five years on
Five years ago, mum-of-five Sarah Wellgreen was murdered by her bitter ex-partner, who bundled her body into his taxi and drove into the night.
At trial, jurors were in no doubt that harm had come to the beautician, as they unanimously convicted Ben Lacomba, the “angry” and “controlling” father to her three youngest children, of her murder.
However, despite years of desperate searching, her body has never been found.
Speaking to The Independent to mark the fifth anniversary of her death on Monday, her son Jack Burdett, 26, told how he cannot leave the area where she vanished in New Ash Green, Kent, until he discovers his mum’s final resting place.
“All year round, every minute of every day, I drive past bushes and wonder – is it there?” he said.
“It’s a duty. She’s somewhere here and I have got to find her. It’s one piece missing out of the jigsaw puzzle – just that last corner.”
Police have scoured more than 1,250 locations, equipped with sniffer dogs, drones and sonar, in a bid to find the mother, whose death was the subject of a Sky documentary.
Jack and community volunteers have also dedicated hundreds of hours to search parties in the hopes of finally being able to say goodbye – all to no avail.
“I am still doing searches every now and again,” said Jack, the second of Sarah’s two sons from a previous relationship.
“I think it was a couple of months ago when I got a phone call from a member of the public because he watched the documentary and something popped into his brain. We went into the woods and started to dig a hole.
“Literally anything, if any leads pop up – that’s why I’m in Kent – to just go there. I just don’t want to leave it in someone else’s hands.
“Lacomba’s not smart – he’s an idiot – he’s just got really, really lucky which is annoying. He’s not a criminal mastermind.”
Sarah, 46, had been preparing to buy Lacomba out of their shared four-bedroom home, where the couple were separated but co-parenting, shortly before her death on 9 October 2018.
The taxi driver claimed he was sleeping when she disappeared overnight, leaving her phone, purse and keys behind, and reported her missing two days later.
But he became the 18th murderer in Britain to be convicted without a body after jurors heard how he switched off CCTV cameras and drove away in the cover of darkness, returning with his car mud-splattered in the early hours of the morning.
He told police a shovel found in his shed was a Christmas present for his frail, elderly mother, before he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years.
A few years ago, Jack and his brother Lewis, 27, tried to visit Lacomba in prison to appeal to him to reveal where he buried Sarah. But he never replied.
Jack said the killer was “torturing” the family and his three younger siblings by refusing to give up the location of her body.
But they take what comfort they can from the knowledge that Lacomba could be denied parole under recently passed Helen’s Law, unless he finally reveals what he did with Sarah’s body.
“He’s got the information that everyone wants. He’s going to hold his cards close to his chest until he can get something out of it,” he said. “He’s emotionally torturing his own children.
“Emotionally I think my family is a bit broken. Do I think me, my brother or my nan and grandad will be able to [feel] pure happiness? I don’t think we will ever feel that again because of the loss and the shock of it all.”
On Monday, Jack and his siblings will spend the day in church, supported by their grandparents, writing messages to their mum which they usually send up in a balloon.
He added: “I do miss her. She won’t be there when Lewis gets married. She won’t be there when I get married. All those important moments of life, all those picture-perfect moments – there will always be an empty seat.
“Everyone thinks that their mum is the best. I suppose I do as well.
“She was just a good mum. Whether it be her going down to my school and fighting with the teachers over what I had done, she was always in your corner.
“Right or wrong she had your back. Because that’s what you do for family. You trust and you help in the hope that it will all work out.”
Despite the weight of unanswered questions, Jack is focused on rebuilding his life, as he works multiple jobs in landscaping and hospitality, while also building his own photography and photobooth business.
But he also faces the battle of selling his mum’s half of the house she shared with Lacomba, in Bazes Shaw, New Ash Green, to safeguard his younger siblings’ future.
And with Lacomba’s name on the deeds, he fears he could face a court fight with his mum’s former partner, even though he’s behind bars.
“That house should be sold for the kids’ future. He’s in prison, he can’t provide for them and he shouldn’t be able to profit off it or rent it out,” he said.
When he and Lewis briefly returned to the property to collect their mother’s things, he felt a mix of emotions.
“It just felt wrong, to be honest with you,” he said. “Obviously me and Lewis used to live there when we were kids.
“Going back there I felt anger. Anger and confusion. Walking around the house was weird because obviously, you have ideas of how it went down and different scenarios pop into your head. It wasn’t a fun experience.”
Whatever the legal challenges – he is determined to do what he can to safeguard his younger siblings’ future and pass on the love he and Lewis, now a soldier, felt growing up with Sarah.
“My mum always had a plan and I’m just trying to make sure there is a plan for everyone else,” he said.
“The kids aren’t going to feel a mother’s love again. How am I going to make sure that the kids feel the good times that I had? It feels like an impossible task, but I hope we are doing alright.”
On Monday, Kent Police renewed an appeal for information that could lead them to Sarah’s whereabouts, adding that Lacomba would “almost certainly” have moved her body in his red Vauxhall Zafira taxi.
Det Ch Insp Neil Kimber, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: “We believe it is very likely he then concealed her remains in a rural area, surrounding New Ash Green, Longfield or a location towards Sevenoaks.”
Urging people to come forward, he added: “Any detail, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, could be the clue which one day leads to a breakthrough.”
