Let This Be Our Secret
| Author | Deric Henderson |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime, Fact |
| Publisher | Gill & MacMillan/ Penguin |
Publication date | 2011 |
| Media type | Print Paperback |
| Pages | 256 pp |
| ISBN | 978-0717147700 |
Let This Be Our Secret is a true-crime book by award-winning Irish journalist Deric Henderson about how Colin Howell, aided and abetted by his mistress and fellow-Christian Hazel Stewart, callously killed their spouses and buried the truth for 18 years by making the deaths look like a suicide pact.[1]
Background
The pair, one the wife of a dentist the other an officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (R.U.C.), died in what was then believed to be a suicide pact,[2] although they were not lovers.[3]
The body of nurse Lesley Howell, 30, wearing Walkman earphones and clutching photos of her four children, lay on the back seat of a car.[2] Trevor Buchanan, 31, lay dead in the front seat. The car was filled with exhaust fumes inside the garage of a house in the seaside town of Castlerock in County Londonderry in May 1991.[2] An inquest heard that no crime was suspected, and returned verdicts of suicide.[3]
Howell's secret
Eighteen years later, in 2009, Howell's husband Colin, 50, a dental implant specialist, church-goer and born-again Christian, contacted police. Colin Howell was to reveal that the two were murdered by their respective spouses at the time: himself and Sunday school teacher Hazel Buchanan (later, Stewart) who were in fact, lovers.[2][3] Their relationship continued secretly for five years after the murders[3] and both later remarried.
Deric Henderson's 2011 book tells the story of dentist Howell and his lover[4] with coverage of both trials and interviews of family members among others. A publication summary reads:
A series of disasters in Howell’s life – the death of his eldest son, massive losses in an investment scam and the revelation that he has been sexually assaulting female patients – lead to him declaring that he is a fraud and a godless man. He tells the elders of his Church that he and Hazel Stewart conspired together to murder their spouses nearly two decades earlier.[5]
TV series
Henderson's account became a 2016 TV series titled The Secret, starring James Nesbitt as Colin Howell with Genevieve O’Reilly as Hazel Buchanan, Laura Pyper as Lesley Howell and Jason Watkins as Pastor John Hansford.
The Secret is written by Stuart Urban, directed by Nick Murphy and produced by Jonathan Curling; the executive producer is Hat Trick Productions' Mark Redhead.[6]
References
- ↑ Review: Crime: "Let This Be Our Secret by Deric Henderson," the Independent, Ireland
- 1 2 3 4 "Former partners of 'suicide pact' couple charged with their murders 18 years on," by Henry McDonald for the Guardian, 2009
- 1 2 3 4 "How two families were torn apart", by Mandy McAuley BBC 2011
- ↑ Review of Let This Be Our Secret, the Irish Times, October 12, 2011
- ↑ Let This Be Our Secret, by Deric Henderson
- ↑ "James Nesbitt to star as dentist turned killer in new TV drama," Evening Times 15/10/2015