Estranged second wife may be questioned again

INVESTIGATION:COLIN HOWELL'S estranged second wife Kyle may be questioned again by the PSNI about the murders of Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell while the Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson is also investigating how the original RUC investigation was conducted, it emerged yesterday.

Kyle Jorgensen, who is living in Florida in her native US with the former couple’s five children, was allegedly made aware by Howell in 1998 that he and Hazel Stewart carried out the murders in May 1991.

The Stewart trial heard that in 1998 Howell confessed to his second wife, whom he married 15 months earlier, that he carried out the killings. On her prompting, he planned to admit to the killing but decided against confessing after he experienced a “religious conviction” at Barn Fellowship church in Ballymoney, Co Antrim.

It was not until January 2009 that he told police about the killings. Ms Jorgensen, it is understood, has filed for divorce from Howell.

Det Supt Raymond Murray, the PSNI chief investigating officer, said there was a file “regarding Kyle Howell with the Public Prosecution Service”. Police were interested in what emerged in court and would be examining the transcripts, he added.

He confirmed Mr Hutchinson was investigating how police carried out the original inquiry into the murders. Northern Ireland was a “very different place” in 1991, he said. He regretted that the families had to wait 20 years for the convictions, and understood why the ombudsman was investigating at their behest. “If there are lessons to be learned we will learn them,” he said.

“I don’t think I have really felt such tension or such emotion in a court with the deliverance of the verdict,” he added. It shows how deeply this has scarred absolutely everybody that is involved.”