Killer was a bit of craic, recalls shocked man who knew Howard only as ‘Bob’

DEPRAVED killer, Robert Howard, used to prowl riverbanks in the dead of night shooting salmon as they leapt upstream.

The jobless drifter became a successful poacher and regularly produced fish and rabbits with which he inveigled his way into the homes of local families.

His peculiar lifestyle was revealed by a caller to the Gerry Ryan radio show who expressed his shock at discovering the odd but seemingly harmless man who made himself at home in the caller’s family house was a rapist and murderer.