MURDERER Gary Thompson chatted to bar staff in his local the night before he bludgeoned and stabbed Gillian Raine to death – giving some cryptic clues as to what was on his mind He had been drinking at Castleside Club, not far from his home in Moorland View, and told them they would not see him again.

Club steward David Rose, 33, said: “He had been in quite a few times during the week and he was going on about how much he blamed his mother-in-law for the split up of his relationship.

“On the Sunday, he said he was going to move away from the area and that he had it all planned out and knew what he was going to do.

“He said he had to go to Dipton first thing in the morning.

I asked where he was going after Dipton and he said he didn’t know.”

Mr Rose said no one could have foretold that the slight figure, who regularly propped up the bar with a pint of Guinness, was about to commit a cold blooded murder. But it was obvious something was preying on his mind.

“He was always distant, but he was even further away than he normally was,” he added.

“When I was talking to him he wasn’t really listening to anything I was saying to him.

“It was like he was in a trance, like he had something on his mind, like he was going to do something – that was the feeling he was giving off.”

The penny dropped for club staff when the secretary called to say a woman had been murdered in Dipton.

Mr Rose added: “Me and the treasurer just looked at each because obviously Gary had told us on the Sunday he had to be in Dipton. It was one of those moments when two people look at each other and think the same thing. I could not believe it.”