MURDER and violent, tragic deaths are rare in Swindon, but some major incidents have made national headlines.

On March 19, 2002, 41-year-old Linda Razzell disappeared after parking her car in Alvescot Road, Old Walcot. She was never heard from again and her body has never been found.

There were poster appeals, reconctructions and hundreds of people were questioned in a bid to establish her whereabouts.

In October 2002 her estranged husband Glyn was found guilty of her murder.

In April 2004, nursery nurse Amanda Edwards was found wrapped in a plastic sheet in a shallow grave at a Malmesbury building site.

The 21-year-old, of Purton, was believed to have been strangled by Ian Cortis, who killed himself just hours after her body was found.

Amanda had been missing for eight days. At the investigation’s peak 200 police officers and staff were involved in the search.

In September 2004, postal worker Mick Love was killed when he was stabbed three times in a street robbery in Cannon Street, Old Town.

The father-of-two, 40, had been walking home following a night out with friends.

Colin Lewin, then 35 and of Broad Street, Swindon, was arrested and charged with Mick’s murder.

He pleaded not guilty and was acquitted by a jury. No-one has since been convicted.

In September 2006, the body of 17-year-old Lorna Gibbison was found by workmen in a courtyard behind Alexander House, in Fleming Way.

The teenager had fallen after walking across a rooftop walkway, before climbing up a four-foot wall and walking along the roof that looked down onto a courtyard where her body was found.

It is believed she was trying to gain entry to Angelo’s nightclub.

In October 2007 a coroner ruled her death had been a tragic accident.