A double murder trial in Northern Ireland has heard that a former dentist, convicted of killing his wife and his former lover's husband, dropped an electric cable into his wife's bath months before he poisoned her with carbon monoxide.
Colin Howell was jailed for 21 years in December after he confessed to gassing Lesley Howell and 32-year-old Trevor Buchanan as they slept in their own homes in May 1991.
The trial is taking place at Coleraine Crown Court of his former lover and the then wife of Mr Buchanan, Hazel Stewart, who has pleaded not guilty to the murders.
Ms Stewart, who is a 47-year-old mother-of-two from Coleraine, denies entering into a ‘joint agreement’ with Colin Howell to kill their respective partners almost 20 years ago.
They had been having an affair, which was exposed in 1990.
The trial has already heard Hazel Stewart told police it was ‘his plan’ and that she was frightened of him and his under his control.
Today the jury of nine men and three women heard from a friend of murdered Lesley Howell. In the months before her death, the friend said the mother-of-four told her that Colin Howell had dropped a live electric cable into her bath.
A second witness, who was a friend of Trevor Buchanan, told the court he contacted police and raised suspicions about the deaths of his friend and Mrs Howell.
In May 1991, they were found in a fume-filled car at the seaside town of Castlerock.
At the time, it was thought they had died by suicide. The fact that they were murdered only came to light two years ago.
Hazel Stewart's trial is expected to last four weeks.
