Confessions of a Killer (2025) BBC iPlayer, Director Chris Wilson, Narrative voice Bronagh Gallagher.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002q9qq/confessions-of-a-killer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002q9sg/confessions-of-a-killer-series-1-2-judgement-day

Why would a killer admit to being a killer?  Confessions of a Killer are as old as Adam and Eve, Cain and Able. Printed fiction and stage-plays such as Jekyll and Hyde, fed into a penny-dreadful need to know more. To feel more. To become involved in what happens next. True-crime podcasts and drama documentaries and films that claim to be based on true events are some of the biggest trending and fasted growing in the UK, USA and our ever-online world.

When Colin Powell walked into a Coleraine police station and admitted to a double murder of his wife and former lover’s husband—which  had went to plan, a closed case, logged as a double-suicide, around 18 years before—the only question remaining was whether this would be whether this would be a one hour, two hour or three hour documentary.

Producers went for the straight split. His story and her story. The killer and reluctant killer, his lover.

Hazel Stewart made no confession. She’d remarried. They both had two children when they committed murder. Colin Howell remarried and had another four children with his wife, before their divorce. Stewart had two further children. Closed case. 

At first she denied, not the crime, but her involvement. Howell nailed her. His confession had forensic accuracy of who did what and when.

Her lawyer’s strategy then was to engage an expert to suggest that yes, she was guilty, but she was also the victim. She was being ‘coercively controlled’. I used much the same arguments in my novel Beastie. The poor mother figure was someone we all knew. Fucked because she was fucked and beaten. Literally and metaphorically.

Colin Howell’s mea culpa had the particular nastiness of a Rupert Murdoch confessional scoop. The dental surgeon and Baptist Pastor admission of wrongdoing is a laying down his life for what he believes to be true. Hazel Stewart is collateral damage in his truth telling. He once more wants to be admired and change the emotional geometry of people that saw him as just another old man living in a caravan. A loser that has lost his cash. He wants to be somebody again, even if it is a killer.  

An open and shut case. Colin Howell did not expect to lose control of the narrative. He was setting the frames of reference in the same way that the shooting in Minneapolis were set by the Trump hierarchy. Changing the emotional centre of the story, opens up the story to reinterpretation and the roles of major players.  

Messaging that these two fellow citizens killed were domestic terrorists in Minneapolis, for example, were offset by camera-phone footage—the rise of citizen journalist or more plainly, protestors with phones. Arthur Scargill, for example, commissioned his own team to film what was happening during the miners’ strike 1984-85 (before phones were digital) and in particular the ‘Battle of Orgreave’. Presidents and Prime Ministers, with the aid of the Murdoch machine, fixing the narrative to law and order issues are nothing new. The key lesson was no mea culpa. Never apologise. Always wronged. Never wrong. Weaponised attacks with litigation that blames those outside the golden circle as other. Never to be trusted.     

   Crime storytelling, media marketing, and political narrative‑shaping all sit on the same historical box. Traditional fears. Added mystery. Biblical and moralistic drama turned into profitable content and the need to know more. In the hands of  media barons like Murdoch into political influence and kingmaker, like The Sun and News of the World for Thatcher and Fox News for the moron’s moron Trump. The link between penny dreadfuls, true‑crime podcasts, tabloid culture, and modern political myth‑making (including narratives around Donald Trump) isn’t accidental. It’s built in. Structural and economic.

Collin Howell’s reframing was of the worst kind. Being a convicted killer was one thing. Being a paedophile sex pest another. None of us watching will have any sympathy. Well worth watching.        

Notes.

The apparent double suicide of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan in 1991 was long seen as a tragic pact, left undisturbed in police files - until 2009, when Colin Howell confessed to these unrecorded murders. Journalists and investigators describe the shock of his admission, affecting families, community and the justice system.

Exclusive archive and confession tapes trace Howell’s life as a respected dentist and Baptist in Northern Ireland. Contributions from acquaintances reveal how he fostered trust and authority, making his later admission all the more shocking. The series also features the story of co-convicted Hazel Stewart, whose poised public image captivated audiences during her trial.

Howell’s words reveal the weight he claims to have carried for 18 years, and the anticipated devastation of his confession. This episode explores the insularity and strict moral codes in certain religious circles with the backdrop of the Troubles in early 1990s Northern Ireland.

Hazel Stewart’s role is examined, as her legal team argues she was under Howell’s coercive control. This insight is interrogated by Dr Duncan Harding, who questions whether her sudden involvement aligns with coercion patterns, while acknowledging that victims’ voices can be lost in abuse dynamics and the wider justice system.

Howell’s confessions form the documentary's backbone, and his calm admission of guilt raises unsettling questions about truth and perceptions of social standing. What truly happened between Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart, and how should the justice system interpret responsibility decades later?

Colin Howell calmly recounts the aftermath of the murders of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan. Running along the picturesque sands of Castlerock beach at dawn, he enacts his plan to make the murders appear as a suicide pact. Howell calls the police asking about reported traffic accidents, concocting a story that he was alarmed by Lesley’s absence. He plays the concerned husband, informing church members that Lesley had left intoxicated the night before, even suggesting they check her father’s house. 

As the churchgoers return home in their Sunday best, news of Lesley and Trevor’s deaths sends shock waves through the community. Though initially ruled a suicide after a letter is found, some believe something isn’t right. 

Police focus on Hazel Stewart’s complicity; how much she knew about the murder plans and whether she drugged her husband, informed Howell of his shift patterns and disposed of evidence. 

In contrast, a reporter who interviewed Hazel in prison depicts her as gentle and soft-spoken, suggesting she wouldn’t be in prison if not for Howell. Forensic psychiatrist Dr Duncan Harding examines evidence of coercion in their relationship. 

Hazel tells the journalist her guilt led to thoughts of suicide which seemed like ‘the only way to escape’ Howell. She alleges his control over her was so absolute, she allowed him to drug her before sex. Howell was also drugging and sexually assaulting patients at his dental practice. 

Howell ultimately confesses to his second wife, Kyle, who convinces him that the truth will set him free, though she has secrets too. As police investigate Howell’s life, they make a dark discovery on his laptop. 

The court rules on Hazel Stewart’s request, the final avenue of appeal open to her

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6