Killer told net girlfriend his fiancée had died in crash

THE woman who had an intense internet relationship with Colin Whelan has revealed the killer claimed he was single and that his fiancée had died in a car crash.

Whelan, jailed for life this week after pleading guilty to murdering his wife Mary, sent Helen Sheppard more than 60 e-mails in just two months, including one the day before he strangled his 27-year-old wife at their north Dublin home.

Ms Sheppard, a 38-year-old mother of one from Wales, said she was afraid for her own life after Whelan disappeared, as she feared he was going to land on her doorstep.

The pair had planned to meet up on March 2, 2001, the day after Whelan committed the murder.

“Thank God I never met him, who knows what might have happened,” Ms Sheppard told the Irish Daily Mirror newspaper.

“He must be the most devious man alive. He killed his poor wife and wanted to meet me the next day. I can’t find the words to say how evil he is. I’ll never understand how a man who appeared so nice could kill his wife.”

Ms Sheppard, who has a teenage daughter, began the correspondence with Whelan in January 2001.

Ms Sheppard said: “I really believed we had something in common. I lost my mother through cancer and he said he was cut up about his girlfriend. That’s how it first started.”

Whelan sent her e-mails every day and also sent photographs, one of which she placed on the door of the fridge in her home in Porth, north Wales.

“I had one of them (photographs) on the fridge door when the gardaí came in. They just looked at each other when they saw it.”

She said the two officers came to her on March 1, the day that Mary’s body was discovered.

“It was St David’s Day. I will never forget it. I first thought they were going to tell me he’d had an accident and was killed and then I thought he might have been involved in the IRA or something.

“When they told me he’d killed his wife, I nearly collapsed.

“Even after four years I still can’t believe that someone could be so evil.”

Ms Sheppard said she was ready to come over to give evidence and was relieved when she was told Whelan had pleaded guilty.