Scandal; a story from Ulster's past

David returned this morning after a week in America on business. When he's gone, I make more of an effort to be social to fend off loneliness. So I had a friend over for dinner one night (I made veggie lasagna--and no one got hurt!). I went to David and Stuart's for dinner another night. I've been over to neighbour Marshall's and neighbours Michael and Faye's a few times. I watched hours of comedy online. Irish comic Jason Byrne is my new man.

During my four-hour visit with David & Stuart, David told me again of the sordid tale of Colin Howell, a dentist from Coleraine who was a leader in his baptist church (David specialises in tales of criminals who had been respected religious leaders). Howell, married with four children, fell in love with another woman at his church, also married with children. They decided that he would kill his wife, kill his lover's husband, stuff them both in the boot of a car, and drive them to his in-laws vacation house on a cliff, where he would put them in the garage and make it look like a murder-suicide--like THEY were the ones having the affair. Howell and his girlfriend were not found out. A few years later, he and his lover split up and he married a divorced American who moved here with her two kids to start a new life. Like his partner in crime, they also met in bible study. Seven years into the marriage, he told her what he had done. But he had four kids, she had two kids, and I think they had two kids together. He told her she couldn't tell anyone because the kids needed him.

Meanwhile, he was giving his patients too much gas and doing very bad things with them. Meanwhile, he lost 350,000 pounds in a get-rich scheme. Meanwhile, he was having an affair. So finally the American ratted him out--19 years after the crime. He and his ex-girlfriend are now doing time. David has great sympathy for the ex-girlfriend, currently serving an 18-year sentence. He felt Howell--handsome, charismatic, domineering--was the real villain and she had been completely manipulated. However, she knew what he was doing when he killed her husband. She went on to marry a retired policeman, who was very surprised---like the entire nation---when the police arrive to arrest his wife 19 years after her first husband died. What a story.
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