There was one striking similarity in yesterday's death of Mark Fulton and that of Billy Wright, the Loyalist Volunteer Force leader whom he hero-worshipped. They both died in prison.
The difference is that Wright was murdered by the INLA in December 1997; Fulton, aged 42, took his own life yesterday morning, according to security sources.
Word on the street in Portadown was that Mark "Swinger" Fulton had been depressed and just "couldn't do the time".
He was on remand on a conspiracy to murder charge in a segregation wing of Maghaberry Prison for fear of attack from UVF or republican prisoners.
Prison staff found him dead in his cell yesterday morning. He hanged himself with his belt, it is understood.
A post-mortem was being held last night to determine the exact cause of death.
As a Canadian judge, Peter Cory, is currently investigating whether the circumstances of Wright's death justify an independent inquiry it is hardly surprising that there is also some local suspicion of foul play in Fulton's death.
There were reports that Fulton was particularly fearful for his life in recent weeks.
He was in an isolation cell mainly because of a long-running and bloody LVF-UVF feud. Nonetheless, security sources believed that it would be clearly established that suicide was the cause of death.
Fulton came to public prominence when in 1996 he swaggered side-by-side with Billy Wright around the hill at Drumcree. Two tattooed figures, they both cut very menacing figures at the scene.
It was that year that the RUC chief constable Sir Hugh Annesley felt that such was the loyalist threat that he had no option but to sanction the Orange parade being forced down Garvaghy Road.
The murder of Lurgan Catholic taxi-driver Michael McGoldrick added to that sense of threat.
But it was in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s that Fulton initially made his mark, first as a UVF and later as an LVF paramilitary.
In 1990 and early 1991 the mid-Ulster brigade of the UVF, of which Fulton was a leading member, is estimated to have murdered 12 people around the area of Lough Neagh.
Attacks included the killing of four Catholic men in a bar in Cappagh, Co Tyrone in March 1991. The same month two Catholic teenage girls and a man were murdered at a mobile shop in Craigavon.
While it is unclear whether Fulton was directly involved in these killings it is certain that with Wright he was a central figure in the UVF as it conducted a reign of terror in mid-Ulster.
Fulton took control of the LVF after Wright's murder in December 1997.
As cold, sectarian and callous a man as Wright, it was evident however that he lacked Wright's discipline and control. Security sources also said he was involved in drugs dealing.
He was jailed for four-and-a-half years after he fired four shots from a handgun in December 1998 in Portadown.
He had been drinking heavily at the time. This was around the time that the LVF decommissioned some weapons and Fulton's defence, which did not impress the judge, was that he had a letter of immunity from Gen de Chastelain to carry the weapon.
While Fulton was in prison prominent Portadown loyalist Richard Jameson was murdered by the LVF, further fuelling internecine violence between the LVF and UVF in the feud that dated back to Wright's expulsion from the UVF in 1996. Fulton phoned from his prison cell to deny LVF involvement, although few believed him. During his time in prison Fulton claimed the UVF tried to poison him.
He was released from prison in March last year but by Christmas was back in custody again, accused of conspiracy to murder in a case related to the loyalist feud.
He had been questioned in connection with the 1999 LVF murder of Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson.
He denied any involvement in the murder last September of Sunday World journalist Martin O'Hagan, although he was infuriated at articles Mr O'Hagan had written ridiculing the LVF and Wright.
Associates said he that he had never recovered from Wright's death.
