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Steve Punter via Creative Commons
Courts
Court hears murder victim called out for son as husband poisoned her
A Belfast court has heard details of the events surrounding the double murders dentist Colin Howell was convicted of last week.
A BELFAST COURT HAS HEARD how a man recently convicted of murdering two people in May 1991 staged a scene to make the murders appear a double suicide.
Colin Howell, 51, was convicted last week of murdering his wife and his former lover’s husband.
A judge is due to decide the minimum term he will serve on Friday.
Yesterday, details of the murders were revealed to the court at a pre-sentencing hearing, according to the Irish News.
The court heard that Howell, who pleaded guilty to the murders, killed Lesley Howell and Constable Trevor Buchanan with carbon monoxide. He ran piping from the exhaust of his car first into the sitting room where his wife was sleeping, and then later into Buchanan’s bedroom.
The court also heard that Lesley Howell awoke as her husband was poisoning her, and called out for her six-year-old son when she realised her life was in danger.
Howell put both bodies into a car and set it up to appear as a suicide.
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