Linda's friends remember her outside St Michael's Church in Highworth last monthFRIENDS of murdered Highworth mother Linda Razzell have described their 18-month ordeal as "a bad dream".

As her family now try to come to terms with their loss after a jury decided her estranged husband Glyn had kidnapped and killed her last year, friends of Linda have vowed never to forget her memory.

Practice nurse Jan Haylett, a neighbour of Linda's from Pentylands Close in Highworth, knew Linda for seven years and said she would never forget the 41-year-old Swindon College learning support assistant's sense of humour and fun.

She said: "We never gave up hope that Linda might be alive and all the time the police were searching there was always a glimmer of hope. It's been like a bad dream even now I look out of the window expecting to see her car parked outside. Linda was always here, there and everywhere.

"The verdict was a good result and we are relieved the trial is over, but the sense of loss, emptiness and bereavement is stronger than ever.

"Linda meant a lot of different things to her friends. People have all got different ways of remembering her.

"Linda had a great sense of humour and fun, which will be a lasting memory and which is the reason she was involved in so many things she always had a positive outlook on life.

"To me, she was quietly unassuming about the contribution she made and people don't realise how many parts of the community she was involved in.

"Linda was a devoted mother to her four children and juggled so many commitments in her life she would take Matthew to football and Emma to Brownies. Her life was one long taxi drive, taking her children to so many different places."

On Friday, a fraught five-week trial at Bristol Crown Court came to an end when a jury of seven men and five women unanimously found Linda's estranged husband Glyn Razzell, 44, a former investment manager with Zurich Financial Services, guilty of murdering Linda on March 19 last year. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The verdict marked the end of 18-months of uncertainty for Linda's family and friends, who did not know what had happened to her on that Tuesday morning. Razzell consistently denied any involvement in his wife's disappearance and has still not revealed where he has dumped her body.

Families in Pentylands Close held a street party in August 2002, before Linda's children Catherine, Matthew, Emma and Robin moved to Wales to live with relatives. Those who went say it was great fun but there was one person missing.

Mrs Haylett said: "Linda's house was always full of children, but she welcomed them as part of her family. She would put up with all that and still be organised with everything else that was going on in her life.

"It's a massive loss to the close and everybody round here misses the children.

"It's been hard because on the anniversary of her death I could not go anywhere and console myself. I wanted to go somewhere quiet, like a grave, but that isn't possible.

"I knew Linda for seven years and never had any doubts about her. She was sometimes tearful, upset and frightened by some of the circumstances that were going on in her life, but all those feelings were perfectly normal.

"My son once went over the handlebars of his bike and it was Linda he went to see.

"She put him into her car, took him to the doctors where they stitched him up and brought him back home it was no big deal, but that's the sort of women she was.

"Now the trial is over everyone has got to try and piece their lives back together and get on, but we will never forget and her memory will never go away.

"Our thoughts are with the family and always will be, especially the children and Julie and Beverley (Linda's cousins) for whom the hard part is just starting.

"They have got so many thoughts and emotions to deal with the children have lost a mother and father."

Friend Julia Kender added: "Our thoughts are very much with Linda's children. I will remember Linda as a very busy person.

"I was the chair of governors at Southfields School when Linda was the clerk her note and minute taking were par excellence and she did everything quietly and efficiently."

gsheldrick@newswilts.co.uk