Melanie Wallner, born Melanie Van Der Merwe, was born in Pretoria, South Africa. Melanie worked hard after finishing high school to save money so she could move to the UK. In 1996, she moved to London and started working as a waitress. It wasn’t long until she worked her way up to food and beverage manager.

In 2000, then 24, Melanie met a man called Peter Wallner. He had recently moved to the UK from Germany. Peter and Melanie worked together at the Marriott Regents Park in North West London. Peter was a chef.

After only knowing each other for about a year, they married in 2001. Melaine’s career was taking off, working in the catering department at the House of Commons. Peter was also doing really well, being recognised as a rising star chef. The couple lived together in Hammersmith.

Melanie wrote in her diary;

‘I would never have thought I would have said it, but I am incredibly in love with my husband.’

Clearly very fond of her husband.

Melanie’s family and friends in South Africa had assumed her marriage to Peter was more practical than romantic. Her visa was running out, but marrying Peter would mean she would be able to stay in the UK for longer.

There were times when Melanie would complain to her mum, Jeanne, that Peter liked things done a certain way. He liked rigidity and expected Melanie to stick to a schedule all the time. Melanie was apparently keen to make the marriage work and she put in a lot of effort but wasn’t met with the same effort from her husband.

A couple of years after marrying, the Wallners moved out of London to nearby Surrey, where they both started working at the Woodland Park Hotel. Whilst working there, Peter met a young waitress, Lilia French, an exchange student from Malta. He became infatuated with her and they began an affair.

Melanie found out about the affair but still didn’t want to give up on her marriage, so agreed to stay with Peter, as long as he ended things with Lilia and went to couples counselling.

Lilia returned to Malta and Melanie changed jobs so she and Peter didn’t have to work together anymore. Keen to make her marriage work, Melanie wrote in her diary;

‘I’m going to fight for this marriage with every bone in my body. I’m not giving up on us. I have enough hope for us both.’

Peter on the other hand seemed to not want to fix things. It was open knowledge at work that he was having an affair with another colleague, Emma Harrison.

In 2006, Melanie and Peter went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. When they returned home on Sunday 27th August, all seemed well. The couple had a good time on their trip and Melanie had also been granted British Citizenship which she texted her mother about.

Then, on 1st September 2006, Melanie’s family got some terrible news. Petter called and told them that Melanie had died. Peter said he had woken up in the middle of the night to a loud crash and found Melanie lying unconscious on the floor. Despite his best efforts, she died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

Melanie’s parents flew to the UK from South Africa. They stayed with Peter, and whilst there the coroner told Peter that Melanie had died from an aneurysm. He insisted that Melanie’s parents didn’t go with him to see their daughter’s body because he wanted them to remember her as she was.

They had a memorial at the hotel Melanie worked at, the Thistle Hotel. Friends and colleagues attended and listened as Peter gave his touching and thoughtful eulogy.

Shortly after, Peter followed Melanie’s parents to South Africa, taking her ashes with him as her family wanted her with them. They had a second memorial service there before PEter returned home to the UK.

While Melanie’s family were grieving their loss, Peter carried on his relationship with Emma Harrison.

In 2007, after asking and patiently waiting for a copy of their daughter’s death certificate, Peter arranged to visit Melanie’s parents in South Africa to give them a copy. Unfortunately, he had to cancel at the last minute after his father suffered a heart attack.

Then in 2008, Melanie’s stepdad flew to the UK and attempted to meet Peter at the airport to get her death certificate. Peter was a no-show due to his mother suffering a stroke. It was around this time that Emma decided to end her relationship with Peter. 

Peter met a new girlfriend, Rebecca Jackson. She believed he was a grief-stricken widow, heartbroken over the loss of his wife. Rebecca fell pregnant and the two made plans to move in together, but when the time came, Peter told her he was in Germany because his parents were ill so they wouldn’t be able to move in together. 

When his daughter was born, Peter only saw her a few times before deciding he wanted nothing to do with her. Rebecca found out that Peter was seeing another woman, Claire Trickett.

In 2008, Peter was fired from his job at Woodlands Park Hotel. Around that time, Melanie’s mum received a notice for an outstanding parking ticket in Melanie’s name. At this point, she was tired of waiting for Peter to give her Melanie’s death certificate, so asked him once more to send it so she could sort everything out. Again, he didn’t. Melanie’s mum, Jeanne, reached out to a friend in the UK for help. When the friend tried to get the death certificate, they discovered that there was no record of Melanie’s death.

Jeanne tried calling Peter to find out what was going on, but he ignored her. 

Peter’s ex-fling Lilia, then 23, returned to the UK to be with him. They lived together in his house on Hamilton Avenue. Although it was now her home too, one thing that Peter made sure of was that Lilia never went into the garden shed.

When the couple failed to keep up with rent payments, their landlord asked them to move out. The two of them made plans to move to Malta to be closer to Lilia’s family. 

Peter’s landlord, Roy Crabbe, went to the Hamilton Avenue property to prepare it for new tenants. On Saturday 6th June, he found that the wheelie bin hadn’t been emptied due to it being too heavy, thus refused. He looked inside and saw a human foot, and when he proceeded to lift out some of the rubbish, discovered a body.

Surrey police instantly launched a murder investigation. The body was so badly decomposed that they had to use dental records to identify the victim. It was the body of Melanie Wallner.

Peter Wallner was the main suspect in the murder of his wife. An international alert was put out in the hopes of apprehending him. 

Peter Wallner had been in Malta for three weeks when he saw the news that Melanie’s body had been found and that he was wanted for her murder. 

Both Peter and Lilia went back to the UK where police were waiting for them. They were both arrested at the airport. Lilia was later released on bail, and eventually, with no evidence linking her to having involvement in Melanie’s murder, she was free to go back to Malta. 

From the very start of his questioning, Peter insisted that he accidentally killed Melanie in self-defence during a violent argument. Peter wasn’t very forthcoming with the details though, and even said;

‘I’m not going to say something just to fit in the picture. I can’t remember. It would be easy for me to say ‘yes’ but I can’t remember.’

Peter’s version of events didn’t add up and investigators soon discovered the true version of events. Peter and Melanie argued after Melanie discovered emails between him and Lilia. Afterwards, Melanie went upstairs to bed. Whilst she was sleeping, Peter snuck upstairs with a cast-iron pan and beat Melanie to death. He hit her three times in the face, before placing a plastic bag over her head. He then put her body in the bath and washed her. He put Melanie’s body in a sleeping bag, after removing her wedding ring, and rolled her up in a tarp, before putting her body in the garden shed. Peter then cleaned the house, washing the mattress and using fabric dye to cover the blood stains.

The next evening, his 31st birthday, Peter went to dinner with his then-girlfriend, Emma Harrison. At dinner, Peter told Emma that Melanie had left him and moved to London. That night the two of them went back to Peter’s home and had sex in the bed where he had killed his wife just one day before. 

The following day, Peter went to Argos and brought a chest freezer for the shed, so he could store Melanie’s body. It was where he kept her for three years.

To cover up what he’d done, he used Melanie’s phone to text Jeanne and tell her that Melanie had gotten her British Citizenship. He also used Melanie’s credit card.

Peter then came up with the elaborate story that Melanie had died from a brain aneurysm and played the part of the grieving widow in front of friends and family. The ashes that he had taken to Melanie’s family were from his barbeque. 

In 2009, after losing his job, racking up debt, and being unable to pay his rent, Peter decided to go to Malta. He moved Melanie’s body from the freezer to the household waste bin and covered it with rubbish in an attempt to conceal it. He then sold the freezer to a neighbour for £25. 

On May 1st, 2009, Peter left the UK with Lilia, leaving his wife’s body on the curb in the wheelie bin.

The bin stayed on the curb for 3 weeks before the landlord discovered what was in it. The bin men had refused to empty it because it was too heavy, something which is common practice in the UK. 

In June 2010, Peter Wallner went on trial, charged with the murder of his wife, Melanie Wellner. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, not murder. 

Peter’s version of events, acting in self-defence, might have been believable, had he not forgotten a key piece of evidence. When he wrapped Melanie’s body up, he forgot to take off her eye mask, proving she was asleep when he attacked her. 

On June 4th 2010, the Jury found Peter Wallner guilty of the murder of Melanie Wallner. He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 20 years.