A WOMAN conspired with her lover to kill their spouses and to make their deaths look like a suicide pact, a court has heard.
Hazel Stewart (47) denies murdering her RUC officer husband Trevor Buchanan (32) and Lesley Howell (31) in May 1991.
The former playschool assistant appeared before the court in Coleraine, Co Derry, yesterday following the decision by her former dentist lover, Colin Howell (51), to plead guilty to the double murder 18 years after the crimes.
He is serving a 21-year sentence and is expected to be called to give evidence.
Outlining the case against her, prosecutors told the jury: “It will be clear this was a joint plan . . . to kill their respective wife and husband by carbon monoxide poison . . . Hazel Stewart entered it knowing she would help Howell to kill, and afterwards helped cover up what they had done.”
Ciarán Murphy QC told the court Ms Stewart played a role in the elaborate plan to kill the two victims and to make the deaths appear as suicide.
The court, with Mr Justice Anthony Harte presiding, heard that Howell used a hosepipe to gas his sleeping wife with car exhaust fumes in their home. He then travelled, as arranged with Ms Stewart, to her home where he also used a pipe to gas her husband in similar fashion.
Mr Murphy said that as Howell tried to gas Mr Buchanan, the victim stirred from his sleep and there was an altercation in which Howell suffered an injury to his face.
Once the second victim was also dead, Mr Murphy alleged that Howell drove the bodies to the address of his lover’s late father in Castlerock, Co Derry, where he made it look as if they had taken their own lives. The bodies were discovered in a fume-filled garage overlooking the Atlantic.
Ms Howell’s body, surrounded by photographs and her personal stereo, was found in the boot while Mr Buchanan’s body was slumped in the driver’s seat.
“It is alleged that the deaths of the two victims were brought about as a result of a joint plan and agreement by this defendant and Colin Howell,” Mr Murphy said.
The trial heard details from police interviews given by the defendant after Howell’s confession in which she is said to have given contradictory accounts of the events of the night of the killings.
The court heard that the relationship between Howell and Ms Stewart continued after the murders but she later remarried.
The prosecution also read a note, written by Ms Howell to her husband and subsequently used by him to make her death appear as suicide.
“Dear Colin, just going to sleep now, don’t know how long for, but thanks for the good times in our marriage,” it stated. The case is to run for four weeks.