21 years for dentist who killed wife and ex-lover’s husband

A DENTIST who murdered his wife and ex-lover’s policeman husband as they slept nearly 20 years ago and covered it up as a double suicide has been jailed for a minimum of 21 years.

Colin Howell, 51, from Glebe Road, Castlerock, Co Derry, was told by Mr Justice Anthony Hart at Belfast Crown Court that he had committed truly heinous crimes and showed no mercy to his victims. Last month he was sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to poisoning wife Lesley, 31, mother of their four children, and PC Trevor Buchanan, 32, husband of the woman with whom he had been having an affair at the time in May 1991.

The dentist killed both in their respective homes in Coleraine as they slept — Ms Howell on the sofa and Mr Buchanan in his bed — when he attached part of a baby’s feeding bottle to a garden hose to poison them with a car’s carbon monoxide fumes.

Mr Buchanan’s wife Hazel, 47, a mother of two from Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, Co Derry, who later remarried taking the name Stewart, is due to stand trial next February for the two murders. She denies the two charges.

Howell’s crimes only came to light two years ago when he confessed to elders in his church and then police. Including time already served in prison, he will not be considered for release until 2029.