Dentist killed wife and lover’s husband

A SCHEMING dentist murdered his wife and his lover’s policeman husband by poisoning them with car exhaust fumes as they slept, a court heard yesterday.

Colin Howell then fooled investigating police by stage-managing a scene to make it look as if they had died in a suicide pact, Belfast Crown Court heard.

He kept the secret for almost 20 years before confessing to detectives. Howell, 51, first killed his wife Lesley and later Constable Trevor Buchanan at their homes in Coleraine, Co Derry, in May 1991, when he attached part of a baby’s feeding bottle to a garden hose to poison them with carbon monoxide fumes from a car.

Details of the double murder were revealed for the first time at a pre-sentence hearing for Howell, who has pleaded guilty to the murders.

Crown lawyer Kieran Murphy told Mr Justice Anthony Hart: “This was a meticulous and devious plan, and premeditated in a manner that might be described as professional.”

Howell, of Glebe Road, Castlerock, Co Derry, has already been sentenced to life imprisonment and will be told on Friday the minimum term he will serve.

His former lover, mother-of-two Hazel Stewart, who remarried after Constable Buchanan’s death, has pleaded not guilty and her trial, which is due to begin in early February, is expected to last up to a month.

The court heard of an elaborate plan by Howell to cover up the murders. The following morning he called police to see if his wife had been in an accident as she had been drinking.

He then alerted one of his church elders, Jim Flanagan, and asked him to go to Cliff Terrace to see if his wife was there. Number six had been owned by his wife’s father, Harry Clarke, who had died at his daughter’s home 12 days earlier. Howell had left the bodies there the previous night. Flanagan didn’t find them at first, but when he went back a second time, the bodies were found in the car.

Mr Murphy then read extracts from an extensive series of interviews Howell gave to police.

They disclosed how he had given the impression his wife and Mr Buchanan had committed suicide because they had struggled to cope after discovering he and Ms Stewart had been having an affair.

At the time, Howell claimed Mr Buchanan had come to his own house and the pair had an altercation, which resulted in the policeman striking him before leaving.

Howell said he awoke the next morning to find his wife gone, leaving a note in the house.

He then rang a member of his church and the authorities to report her missing.

The court heard he wanted to start a new life with his lover and for that he needed his wife and Ms Stewart’s husband dead.

While Howell claimed money had not been the motive for the killings, the court heard he benefited financially from the deaths of his wife and father to the tune of more than £400,000.

Mr Murphy said Howell was able to pay off debts and develop his dental practice in Ballymoney, Co Antrim.

But then the court heard Howell lost £353,000 on a Philippines scam involving a scheme to recover gold.

Mr Murphy urged the judge to impose a severe sentence.

He added: “The actions of the dentist were calculated, callous, manipulative, evil and wholly without mercy for two defenceless victims, one of whom was his wife and the other the loving husband of his co-accused.”