Twenty-five years passed before the family of Linda Lunsford received the answer they had spent a quarter of a century waiting for. On Boxing Day 1996, the 38-year-old mother of five left Walmart in Chesterfield County, Virginia after an overnight shift. She had been helping prepare the store for post-Christmas clearance sales. She was last seen at a fast food restaurant near the store, having breakfast with a coworker named John Howard.
The pair had a complicated history. They dated for roughly six months before Linda ended the relationship, but she had grown close to Howard’s children and wanted to remain friendly. They also worked together, and she did not want any awkwardness between them. After breakfast, Linda planned to pick up her three daughters from her mother’s house.
She never arrived. Her family grew concerned quickly. Linda worked three jobs to support her children and lived on a carefully planned schedule. Being late was completely out of character.
When her family searched for her, they found her locked burgundy Nissan Sentra parked outside a Food Lion in the Village Marketplace. There was no sign of a struggle, but there was also no sign of Linda. That evening, she was reported missing. Investigators reviewed closed-circuit footage from Walmart and determined Linda had left of her own free will.
Attention turned to John Howard, the last known person to have been with her. He admitted to having breakfast with Linda that morning. But his children told investigators a different story. They had seen Linda at their home that morning.
Confronted with this, Howard changed his account. He claimed Linda had come to speak about their relationship and had driven away alive and well. Detectives did not believe him. A look at Howard’s purchase history showed he had bought a trash can, lighter fluid, and duct tape in the days before Linda disappeared.
A search of his home found nothing tying him to the disappearance, and Howard could not explain what had become of the items. The investigators felt certain he was involved, but a gut feeling meant nothing without evidence. The case went cold. In early May 2021, the Chesterfield police announced an update.
They believed they finally had enough evidence to link John Howard, now 62, to Linda’s disappearance. He was arrested on May 17 and pleaded not guilty. At his trial in August 2022, prosecutors played an interview in which Howard described his relationship with Linda as intense. He insisted she left his house alone and he never saw her again.
The jury deliberated for a week before finding him guilty of taking Linda’s life, even though her body was never found. Howard was held at Riverside Regional Jail awaiting sentencing. In November 2022, his attorney filed motions to set aside the verdict, arguing there was insufficient evidence to prove Linda had died or that Howard had killed her. The judge denied the motion.
His attorney also noted that Howard had been receiving treatment for cancer throughout the proceedings. A pre-sentence hearing was set for February 21, 2023. Howard never made it. He died on February 7 at VCU Medical Center.
His attorney stated that Howard had suffered a fall at the jail, fracturing his orbital bone and several ribs, and had undergone two surgeries for brain bleeds. For Linda’s family, his death was devastating. They had paid little attention to Howard himself, but his passing meant he took with him the knowledge of where Linda’s body was disposed. Without a body, the case was difficult to prove in court, and now the man convicted could no longer be questioned.
Her children never had the chance to learn what happened during her final moments or where her remains lie. In 1999, another family faced a similar fate. On February 27, 17-year-old Michelle Bright had been celebrating a friend’s birthday in Gulgong, a small town in New South Wales with fewer than 2,000 residents. It was a close-knit community where walking home late at night was considered safe.
Michelle left the party in the early morning hours and vanished during her walk home. She was last seen at 12:45 a. m. on Main Street.
Three days later, her partially clothed body was found in long grass along a railway track near Barney’s Reef Road, less than a kilometer from her home. The New South Wales government offered a reward of 500,000 dollars, the second highest ever offered in the state. For years, residents looked over their shoulders, and the case went cold. Detectives had five suspects but no evidence against any of them.
Twenty years later, in 2019, a fresh team of detectives re-examined the case and narrowed the list to two names. One was Craig Henry Rumsby, a 50-year-old father of four and a former neighbor of the Bright family. Police launched an undercover operation in November 2019. Rumsby was befriended by people he believed were members of a gang.
The operation was elaborate, built around a fictional boss, a promise of money, and a corrupt police officer. During eight months of playing along, Rumsby was frequently told how important loyalty was. In March 2020, Rumsby told an undercover officer that authorities had tried to pin Michelle’s murder on him. By August, the gang members began warning him that police were looking at him.
The reward was raised to one million dollars, and Rumsby commented publicly that Michelle was like a sister to him. Then he was called to meet the boss, who told him he was a suspect in two cases and that the scrutiny was bringing heat. The boss warned him to be honest. Rumsby initially feigned innocence, but he was shown police documents and a photograph of his red Ford Falcon, the same car he had owned when he moved away from Gulgong just two weeks after Michelle’s body was found.
Days after police interviewed him by phone about Michelle, the car had been destroyed by fire. In a soft voice, Rumsby began confessing. He said he left his neighbor’s home around 11 p. m.
, drove into Gulgong, stopped at the Post Office Hotel and the Commercial Hotel, and then described taking Michelle’s life. He held his hand over her mouth until she stopped breathing. He told the undercover officers he did not think he had assaulted her, but admitted he pulled her bra down. He claimed to have no memory of the details after that.
The boss suggested a drive to Gulgong might help him remember. That evening, on Barney’s Reef Road, Rumsby described dragging Michelle by her hands across the road into the scrub so no one could find her. He said he went home, showered, had another beer, washed his clothes, and slept. The next day he was taken into custody.
His trial was delayed by pandemic pressures and finally began in May 2023. After seven weeks, the jury found him guilty. In August, he was sentenced to 32 years in prison and will not be eligible for parole for 24 years.
Michelle’s case was solved by a team of dedicated investigators, and Rumsby, who had lived freely for two decades, will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars.