21/01/2013

Hazel Stewart Drops Murder Appeal

Hazel Stewart has dropped an appeal against her conviction for murdering her husband over twenty years ago.

The 49-year-old was involved in a ploy with her ex-lover, Colin Howell, to murder their respective spouses and pass it off as a suicide pact.

Stewart’s police officer husband, Constable Trevor Buchanan, 32, and Lesley Howell, a 31-year-old nurse and mother of four, were found dead in 1991 in a car filled with exhaust fumes.

Their bodies were discovered in a garage in Castlerock, County L’Derry.

The murders were part of a scheme to deceive police officers into believing they had killed themselves in a suicide pact.

Howell and Stewart split up five years after the murders.

Their guilt was undiscovered for twenty years, until Howell, a former dentist and lay-preacher, confessed.

Stewart, a former Sunday school teacher, was sentenced to 18 years while Howell is currently serving a 21-year sentence.

Hazel Stewart will now drop her appeal.

But she is still challenging a guilty verdict for the murder of her ex-lover's wife at the same time.

(IT)

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The Appeal Court has ruled Hazel Stewart was a "knowing and willing" participant in the murder of her husband and her former lover’s wife, the BBC has reported. Three senior judges have concluded she supported the double murder, carried out by former dentist Colin Howell, by providing him with assistance.
07 June 2011
Inquest Verdict 'Carbon Monoxide Poisoning'
A second inquest has today found that two people murdered by disgraced dentist, Colin Howell and his lover Hazel Stewart were the victims of "homicidal carbon monoxide poisoning". Trevor Buchanan, a 32-year-old policeman and Mrs Howell, 31, were found in a car in a fume-filled garage in the seaside town of Castlerock, Co Londonderry.
23 February 2011
Killer Dentist 'Used Gas To Sedate Lovers'
A high profile murder trial has heard that the accused, Hazel Stewart, feared her former lover - a dentist - gave her too much laughing gas before a sex session on his dentist's chair. Mrs Stewart, 47, is denying murdering her husband, Trevor Buchanan, 32, and her former lover Colin Howell's wife, Leslie, 31, in May 1991.
15 February 2011
Bizarre Double Murder Trial Continues
Defence counsel for a Co Londonderry woman accused of freely taking part in the plot to kill her own husband and her then lover's wife, have claimed that dentist Colin Howell was forcing the accused, Hazel Stewart against her will to be complicit in the deadly plot.
13 January 2012
Stewart Faces Delay Over Double Murder Appeal
Hazel Stewart, who was convicted of double murder, may have to wait until the summer to hear if she can overturn her conviction. Stewart was convicted of murdering her husband and her lover Colin Howell's wife 20 years ago.