Let This Be Our Secret

by Deric Henderson

  By 2008, the Howells had also purchased a site for a house in Florida, near where Kyle’s parents lived, on Sanibel Island. They liked to spend as much time as possible in Florida with the children, and the proposed house for construction would enable them to stay there for longer periods. They also enjoyed family holidays to exotic locations such as Costa Rica.

  The couple had a good circle of church-going friends with whom they socialized regularly and, even with such a young family, they would eat out from time to time on their own, sometimes at Ardtara, which had an excellent reputation for fine dining. Life had never been better for Colin Howell. What had happened in the past was now firmly in the past, and surely there would never be any need for him to visit the dark days of May 1991 ever again. Or would there?

  In August 2008, the entire staff of Howell, Alexander and Associates gathered at Galgorm Manor Hotel, near Ballymena, for a farewell dinner to mark the departure of Mohammad Husban. The young man had spent three happy years in Ballymoney and was sorry to be leaving. He was a popular member of the surgery team. During all that time, Howell had never once raised the issue of religion with the young Jordanian. But as Mohammad sat quietly at the restaurant table, having just been presented with a wallet, cufflinks and House of Fraser vouchers from the staff, Howell started to talk to him about God.

  One of Mohammad’s friends recalls the young man’s account of the conversation: ‘He [Howell] asked Mohammad about forgiveness and said how, in his religion, Jesus had died for their sins. Whatever you’ve done, you would be forgiven, and would go straight to heaven. Howell told him that if he believed in Jesus, then that’s where he was going, no matter what he did in life. He then asked him how people of the Muslim faith viewed that opinion. Mohammad told him it was God who decided who went to heaven and who went to hell. God’s forgiveness depended on how bad the things you had done were. It didn’t matter if you stole something, or murdered anybody – you could be a really good Muslim, and then commit a crime. But would God forgive you? It would be up to God to make that judgement.’

  At this, Howell suddenly began to shift in his seat. He was looking uncomfortable and his face was flushed. He said he needed to go to the bathroom and excused himself. It seemed that Howell had been more than a little unnerved by the conversation, as Mohammad’s friend relates: ‘He eventually came back. Mohammad was preparing to engage again and pick up where they left off. Howell changed the subject completely. Religion wasn’t [ever] mentioned again.’

  16.

  The wages of sin

  August 2006

  In the summer of 2006, Colin Howell was devastated by the death of a close friend, Fritz Hoffman. Hoffman, an American pastor whom Howell first met in the early 1990s while doing free dental treatment for orphans in Romania, had contracted an infection after developing an abscess on an erupting lower wisdom tooth. It spread to his lower jaw and then to the muscles of his neck, leaving him gasping for breath. His wife Ady had phoned Howell in a panic, but there was nothing he could do other than to urge her to call an ambulance immediately. But it was too late. Even as Howell and Ady spoke, his great friend took himself off into the bathroom – well away from his children – where he collapsed and died.

  Fritz had visited Castlerock a number of times, and once in the year before his death when Howell had treated him at his Ballymoney practice. This treatment had absolutely no bearing on the infection in Hoffman’s wisdom tooth, which developed many months later and from which he would ultimately die. But Howell could not help blaming himself for what happened to his friend. Others reminded him that Hoffman’s general health had been poor in recent years and that he had refused to look after himself properly, despite being urged to do so by all those who knew him. None of this made any difference to Howell’s frame of mind; he still felt Hoffman’s death had somehow been his fault. No matter that his friend would eat too many Big Macs, drank high-calorie juices to excess and was massively overweight, or that in later years Hoffman had suffered from breathlessness and chest pains. The persistent feeling of guilt never left Colin Howell.

  The two men had been particularly close, ever since meeting in 1993 in a town called Baia Mare in the Maramureş district, near the Ukraine border in Romania. Howell, who was there as a church volunteer dispensing free dental treatment to destitute orphans in the area, had set up a makeshift treatment centre in a caravan, just beside the huge Pentecostal church in the town centre. Hoffman had previously been a pastor in the US Army in Germany before he left to live in Austria and then Romania. During the Ceauşescu era, he had smuggled Bibles into Romania and had done his best to offer practical help and spiritual succour to those who were suffering and most in need. He was an honourable man and was widely respected in church circles, and he admired Howell’s philanthropic streak. The two men hit it off immediately. In later years, Hoffman would even name his only adopted son after the kind man from Northern Ireland who was always so generous with his time and money.

  Howell told his new-found friend about the death of his first wife. But it was all lies, of course. Hoffman felt for him and later told friends he believed Lesley had been the guilty party, because she killed herself and left Colin with four children to bring up alone – to his mind, this had been a far greater sin than the dentist’s adultery. When the pastor had set up his own church – Couriers for Christ – in Baia Mare, he was quickly able to move it from its humble beginnings in the two-room flat in which he lived to an old Baptist church building which he secured with the help of some of Howell’s money. As far as Hoffman was concerned, his friend from Northern Ireland was a deeply committed Christian, determined to do the Lord’s work and make a better life for children who were otherwise without hope. Of course he died before the full truth about Howell was exposed.

  April 2007

  Less than a year after Fritz Hoffman’s death, tragedy struck once more for Howell. If he had been deeply affected by the loss of his friend in Romania, it is hard to imagine the extent of the emotional body blow he suffered on 30 April 2007, with the death of his eldest son, twenty-two-year-old Matthew, in a freak accident in the apartment block where he had been living in St Petersburg, Russia.

  Matt had been there on an overseas semester as part of his university course; he had died after falling down a stairwell from the fourth floor of the building. The death had a cataclysmic effect on Howell and was undoubtedly a crucial catalyst in the process of emotional and spiritual disintegration which he experienced in the months that followed, a process which would lead finally to his dramatic confession to the church elders and his surrender to the authorities. Just like his friend Hoffman’s death, the loss of Matthew left Howell destabilized and tormented. Suddenly, it must have seemed to him, death was everywhere he looked. He became increasingly possessed by the notion that God was finally punishing him for his past sins. He could not cast off the feeling that his previous belief, that he had been forgiven, was nothing but empty self-delusion.

  It was not just the tragedies of Matthew and his friend in Romania. He felt as if he was haunted by death. It seemed to follow him everywhere. There were Lesley’s three abortions; Hazel’s abortion; the murders of his wife and Trevor Buchanan; the sudden death of the daughter of his Baptist Church friend, Jim Flanagan, the following year; the death of one of Matthew’s school friends, Adam Pollock, who drowned after diving into the sea near Portrush in September 2004. He also had belonged to The Barn Fellowship. Howell even felt a twinge of guilt about the death of the top motorcycle racing star, Robert Dunlop, who was killed practising for the North West 200 races in May 2008. He was one of Howell’s patients, and Dunlop once carried the logo of the Causeway Dental Implant Centre on his helmet.

  Matt Howell had been a very bright, popular young man who had many friends both at Dalriada Grammar School in Ballymoney, where he was a pupil until the age of eighteen, and at St Andrews University. He was unassuming and quietly spoken, but he had a sufficiently strong sense of himself to resist pres
sure from his father to follow him into dentistry. After achieving top marks in ‘A’-level Spanish, Religious Education and Classical Civilization in 2003, Matt took a year out to work in South America for the Christian charity, Operation Mobilization. On his return, he took up a place at St Andrews to study Russian, Spanish and International Relations. He was a great traveller and, as well as his time in South America, he had been to Nicaragua and then the United States, where he spent three months working for Microsoft in Washington, DC. At the time of his death, he was also making plans for a future trip to China.

  According to close friends, Matthew’s relationship with his father had not been good for some time, largely owing to Howell’s controlling ways. One friend of the young man remembers: ‘Matthew hated his father. He was always pushing him. Matthew was always a quiet guy, a lovely young man. His father kept telling people: “He’s going to follow in his dad’s footsteps.” It was as simple as that. There was to be no argument … They didn’t get on, and Howell had no right to say they did.’

  After being informed of Matt’s death, Howell caught the first available flight to St Petersburg, accompanied by his Barn Fellowship church friend, Willie Patterson. Kyle’s sister Elke and her husband Joe Woo, an opinionated Chinese-American, also travelled to Russia from Costa Rica to help Howell with the repatriation process. When the grieving father arrived in St Petersburg, a team from St Andrews was already there and, as they assisted with the paperwork to secure the early release of Matt’s body, Howell returned to the apartment block in question to see for himself where his son had met his death.

  The details of what exactly had happened on that fateful night were now emerging. Matt had been in the apartment with a friend, Geoff. The two young men had some kind of argument, and Geoff left around 4 a.m. Just as he reached the exit door of the building downstairs, he heard his friend cry out twice.

  Matt had followed his friend out of the flat, apparently to throw him a key to let himself out of the building. He was in his socks and slipped on the well-polished floor on the outside landing. He lost his balance, but managed to grab a low handrail as he tumbled over. He knew he was in danger and cried out. Geoff looked up and saw him dangling. At first he thought his Irish friend was playing some kind of joke, but suddenly he realized that Matt was hanging on for dear life. Geoff turned and sprinted up the stairs, pulling a calf muscle two and a half flights up. Just then, he looked on in disbelief as Matt’s body passed him in the shaft of the stairwell, striking the handrail at the bottom. He heard a thump and then a heavy thud. Matthew Howell moaned but he was dead within a minute of hitting the floor.

  Howell’s brother-in-law Joe Woo had his doubts about the death. Could it have been anything other than an accident, he wondered. Maybe it was suicide? Or could Matt even have been murdered? Who knows what could happen in this particular part of the world if a young man strayed into the politics of the place and mixed with the wrong company? Howell quickly dismissed such theories, but decided to find out for himself what had happened in the moments before his son died.

  When Howell got to the apartment block the bloodstains from Matthews’s head wounds were still in evidence on the concrete floor near the exit door. He decided to carry out an experiment. He took out a stopwatch and proceeded to climb the stairs. He estimated it would have taken five seconds for Geoff to realize his friend’s life was in peril in the early hours of that morning – and then some 10.5 seconds to run up the two and a half flights of stairs. Next, Howell went to the spot from where his son had fallen and dropped a coin to see how long it took before hitting the ground. He did it three times and each time it took precisely 2.1 seconds. Howell calculated that between the time of his son’s first shout for help and the moment his body landed, it would have taken something like 17.6 seconds. It must have been a terrifying ordeal for Matthew, but at least Howell left the building with some peace of mind – in the knowledge that his son was only briefly traumatized before he fell to his death.

  The action was typical of Colin Howell in many ways: his detached, almost clinical approach when in extreme circumstances, his determination perhaps to create some sense of control, after the event, over a situation which he never could have anticipated or imagined. The precision and methodical nature of the way he went about establishing just how long his son must have feared for his safety before falling to his death speaks volumes about an obsessive personality in the grip of a grief which threatened to overwhelm him completely. Although Matthew’s death was not the tipping point in Howell’s decision to admit to murder, it certainly was a defining moment. He believed it was God’s way of punishing him for what he had done sixteen years earlier.

  Over 600 people attended Matthew’s funeral at Portstewart Baptist Church where his father and stepmother, his brother Dan and close university and school friends paid fulsome tributes to the young man. At one point in his address to the congregation, Howell asked: ‘How did we produce such a wonderful son? I believe that it was his love of Jesus in him that came out to make you feel welcome.’ Lesley’s name was never mentioned.

  Ryan Wilson, Matthew’s closest school friend, also shared some of his impressions of the young man: ‘He was incredibly popular. When times were good, Matthew would be there sharing your joy and laughing with you, and when his friends faced challenges and difficulties, he would be there, willing to cry with you, or offering a judiciously chosen word of encouragement that would make you see this situation in a different way … I’m privileged to count myself in a number that were moulded and shaped by Matthew’s wisdom and guidance at that formative time. It was his compassion, his conviction, his enormous friendliness, his principled yet grounded and down-to-earth outlook on life that people so admired.’ Andrew Brown, Howell’s dentist friend and an elder, simply said: ‘Matthew was really good at drawing people out. That’s what came out time and again. He was brilliant at making everyone feel as though they were his best friends.’

  In the immediate aftermath of his son’s death, Howell had issued a statement, to be printed in the local press, which read: ‘[Matthew] was the oldest of ten children and a son who honoured his parents and brought us great pride. His home church, The Barn Fellowship in Ballymoney, will miss his energy and loving smile, as well as his frequent reports of his international travels. Matthew will be missed and we thank God for the gift of his life and the time we were allowed to enjoy him. His race is finished and we thank God for His greater knowledge and wisdom in allowing him to go to be with Jesus so soon.’ The words reflected a serene acceptance of the promising young man’s death. And to many of those around Howell at the time, it seemed that his response to the loss of Matthew was just that: almost unbelievably calm and accepting. He took about a month off work in the wake of the bereavement, but by the time he returned to the surgery it seemed that his life had moved on. He told his patients and staff not to worry, because Matt was now in a better place.

  One of the first patients into Howell’s chair when he returned from leave was a businessman from north Antrim who had been having extensive cosmetic work done – the final bill came to some £15,000. His appointment had to be rescheduled because of the funeral arrangements, and he was slightly apprehensive at the idea of meeting Howell again so soon after the tragedy. How do you commiserate with somebody you don’t know particularly well, who has just lost his eldest son? The patient remembers the day well: ‘Matthew’s death didn’t seem to affect him the way I thought it should have. He just accepted it. It was as if it was God’s will. God had called Matthew home. He quoted a few biblical sayings, as if to justify what happened. He went on with the work and didn’t seem to be the least concerned. That’s what shocked me. I know how I would feel if I lost a son. I would be inconsolable for a long, long period of time, but he was dealing with it in a way I just didn’t expect …’ Other patients and acquaintances would have the same impression at the time: that Howell’s apparently measured acceptance of his eldest son’s death was somehow disco
ncerting. It was as if some part of him was simply able to detach itself from the reality of what had happened.

  But the tragedy had affected Howell far more than people imagined, of course. He found himself wondering what Trevor Buchanan’s father must have felt as he struggled to come to terms with his son’s death and deal with all the unanswered questions which surround an unexplained suicide. At least, Howell realized, he had some degree of closure about Matt: he knew what had happened, and that it had been an accident. Sixteen years after the deaths of Lesley and Trevor, the killer had gained some insight into the true extent of the misery and suffering he had inflicted on so many others back in 1991. For Colin Howell, this insight would be the beginning of the end.

  17.

  All that glitters

  Despite his deeply conservative outlook on life, Colin Howell always had a reckless streak, a part of him that enjoyed the thrill of living on the edge and close to danger. And while his skills in financial management had improved over the years – particularly since he married Kyle – he had never been very good with money. But even this does not explain his decision in mid-2008 to get involved in an outlandish scheme to recover lost gold in the Philippines. In so many ways, as those around him could see only too well, it was a crazy course of action which could only ever end in disaster and financial ruin. But maybe, at this stage in his life, that is what Colin Howell really wanted, deep in the heart of him. Perhaps he was already set on a course of self-destruction over which he no longer had any control.