A man and a woman were charged with the murder of a couple whose deaths 20 years ago were originally treated as suicide.
Policeman Trevor Buchanan (31) and dentist’s wife Lesley Howell (30) were found dead in a fume-filled car parked in the garage of a house in the seaside town of Castlerock, Co Derry in 1991. At the time police said they died in a suicide pact.
The murder charges against the 50-year-old man and 45-year-old woman come after police re-opened the investigation this week. The man now charged contacted officers on Thursday. He was taken into custody and the woman was arrested later.
Mother-of-four Mrs Howell’s body was discovered in the back seat of the car in May 1991. She was wearing Walkman earphones and clasping photographs of her children. Mr Buchanan, a father of two, was in a front seat.
Mrs Howell worked for her husband Colin’s dental surgery in Ballymoney, Co Antrim. He later remarried. Their son Matthew was killed in May 2007 when he fell off a balcony while on holiday in Russia.
Police had said a hosepipe led from the exhaust into the car and no crime was suspected. An inquest hearing at a Coroner’s Court later ruled they committed suicide. The co-accused are due to appear in court in Coleraine tomorrow morning.
