369: The Car in the Garage: The Dark Secrets of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan

Summary

Serialously with Annie Elise, Ep. 369

“The Car in the Garage: The Dark Secrets of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan”

Release Date: February 23, 2026
Host: Annie Elise
Studio: Audioboom Studios

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Episode Overview

Annie Elise dives into a harrowing true crime case from Northern Ireland that shocked the local community for decades and only recently saw new developments: the deaths of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan in 1991. The case appeared to be a tragic double suicide staged meticulously in a suburban garage—until, nearly two decades later, a confession shattered everything the families and investigators thought they knew. With her characteristic conversational style, Annie explores not only the intricate web of lies, affairs, and cover-ups but the overlooked details, red flags, and the lasting devastation for the victims’ families.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

1. Introduction to the Case and Setting (01:27–06:00)

• Annie introduces the Howell family, prominent members of the Knocklade Park community in Northern Ireland.
• Colin Howell: Dentist and lay preacher.
• Lesley Howell: Former nursing student, devoted wife and mother of four, described as warm, welcoming, driven, and ambitious.
• In May 1991, two families are upended by a “disgusting discovery”—a staged “crime scene” neither bloody nor haphazard but unsettlingly calm.

Notable Quote:

“The real shock, it didn’t happen inside a house, but rather it was what was found inside the garage, because a car was parked right inside the garage with a dead man in the front seat. Then a second body just quietly tucked away in the trunk, also with personal effects scattered all over it… almost staged.”
— Annie Elise (03:25)

2. The Crime Scene and Initial Beliefs (07:11–13:00)

• Discovery details revealed: Lesley found deceased in the trunk, Trevor Buchanan (local police officer) in the driver’s seat.
• Scene appeared to indicate carbon monoxide poisoning—a “classic” suicide method.
• Odd personal elements: Lesley had headphones in and family photos scattered nearby.
• Both families and the community were devastated; at first, no one questions the suicide theory.

3. Background: The Intertwined Families (13:00–19:00)

• The Howells and Buchanans were close through church and their children.
• The real twist: Colin Howell and Hazel Buchanan (Trevor’s wife) began an affair a year prior, their marriages both deteriorating.
• Annie explores Hazel’s materialism, Trevor’s devotion, and Colin’s previous infidelities.
• Both couples present a respectable façade while hiding deep fractures.

Notable Quote:

“Both Hazel and Colin expressed to one another they were just bored in their marriages. They wanted to have this sexual fantasy play out... It felt dangerous, it felt secretive.”
— Annie Elise (16:13)

4. The Hidden Truths and Red Flags (21:08–36:19)

• Details Colin’s financial irresponsibility, prior cheating, and Leslie's growing suspicions.
• Both spouses (Lesley and Trevor) confront their partners, get gaslit and lied to.
• Hazel’s unwanted pregnancy leads to a secret trip for an abortion in England.
• Affair is “exposed” to the church—but both couples try to reconcile.
• Lesley becomes deeply depressed, attempts suicide after full truth is revealed in counseling.
• Instead of supporting his wife, Colin rekindles the affair with Hazel, pushing Lesley further into despair, especially following her father's death.

5. The Double Deaths — Accepted as Suicide (36:20–39:06)

• Community believes Trevor and Lesley, crushed by betrayal, ended their lives together.
• Both Colin and Hazel begin a relationship shortly after the deaths, openly ostracized from their church, but remain together for years.
• The deaths are grieved, but the case fades from public scrutiny… until 18 years later.

Notable Quote:

“That was the story. And that's what everybody believed, and that's what made the most sense. And it was the narrative that stuck for 18 more years until the truth about what happened finally came out.”
— Annie Elise (39:03)

6. New Confession, Shocking Revelation (42:54–54:53)

• In 2009, Colin Howell walks into the police station and confesses: these were not suicides, they were murders planned with Hazel.
• Detailed description of the plan—Colin kills Lesley (while all four children sleep upstairs), then Trevor, with Hazel’s foreknowledge and assistance.
• The murder scene is staged to mimic double suicide.
• Annie highlights chilling aspects: “All four children were upstairs… He was just pumping this carbon monoxide into the house—did he not care?”
• Trevor fights for his life, but Colin overpowers him.
• Afterward, Colin tutors Hazel on destruction of evidence.

Notable Quote:

“She knew what was happening to her…. Colin was just watching from the living room doorway, having the door just cracked open enough to where he could see everything.”
— Annie Elise (53:15)

7. Missed Evidence, Investigative Failures, and Public Outrage (55:51–65:09)

• Annie reviews how police failed to question inconsistencies:
  • Loose hose, open windows, separated bodies.
  • Unexplained injuries on Trevor’s face and head.
  • No real investigation—no evidence preserved, no comprehensive questioning of the most obvious benefactors (Colin and Hazel).
• Colin only confessed after personal misfortune (“unburdening his soul” after losing money to a scam and the death of his own son).

Notable Quote:

“So it seems kind of odd to just take what they say at face value… The vacuum hose was really loose. It had a kink in it. The window next to Trevor was rolled all the way down… None of it makes sense.”
— Annie Elise (57:10)

8. Legal Consequences — Trials, Sentencing, Appeals (65:10–67:00)

• Both Colin and Hazel convicted and sentenced (Colin: 21 years to life; Hazel: life with a minimum of 18 years).
• Hazel attempts to minimize responsibility, files appeals citing mental illness, consistently rejected by courts.
• True Crime Commentator reflects somberly:

“While there's immense satisfaction that justice for Trevor has finally been achieved, there's no sense of victory and no cause for celebration, as nothing can bring Trevor and Lesley back to us.”
— (65:10)

9. The Aftermath: Abuse, Trauma, and Lingering Questions (67:10–68:21)

• Colin later confessed to sexual assault of six female dental patients, and even that he assaulted Hazel.
• Annie underscores the ripple effect: surviving children grew up mourning a supposed suicide, only to learn their parent was a murder victim at adulthood.
• The families have to grieve twice.

Notable Quote:

“They basically had to grieve their loved ones twice… think about the kids, growing up... then learning as adults their other parent is the one responsible.”
— Annie Elise (66:50)

10. Reflection, Listener Questions & Takeaways (68:21–end)

• Annie invites audience reflection:
  • Why did Colin arrange photos and headphones around Lesley’s body? Out of guilt or to sell the suicide narrative?
  • Why did investigators buy the story so readily?
  • Is any affair, any forbidden romance truly ever worth this?
  • Why not “just get a divorce”?

Notable Quote:

“Like I always say, guys, just get a divorce. It sounds so simple, but obviously it's not.”
— Annie Elise (69:45)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It had sex, it had drugs, it had greed, it had betrayal.”
  — True Crime Commentator (01:06)
• “Colin was never a good guy. He was a bad, skeezy slimeball from the jump… whether it was him being unfaithful to his wife, plotting a murder, assaulting women—it doesn’t matter. This guy deserves to be in hell, in my opinion.”
  — Annie Elise (66:15)
• “Certainly the revelation surprised me… hindsight is great… but nobody ever thought that until the revelations came forward.”
  — Friend of Trevor (68:07)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:27 — Introduction to Lesley and Colin Howell, setting the stage in 1991 Northern Ireland.
• 07:11 — Discovery of the “suicide” scene.
• 13:00 — Affair between Colin and Hazel, church and family dynamics.
• 21:08 — Colin’s first infidelity, financial backstory, Hazel’s pregnancy and abortion.
• 36:19 — Attempted suicide by Lesley, Colin’s reaction, renewed affair.
• 39:06 — Official version of the case: suicide accepted for nearly 20 years.
• 42:54 — Colin’s 2009 confession & detailed timeline of the actual murders.
• 55:51 — Annie’s review of investigative failures and suspicious details.
• 65:10 — Legal outcomes, Hazel’s appeals, commentator’s summing up.
• 67:10 — Secondary confessions (sexual assault), focus on the psychological and familial cost.
• 68:21 — Reflections, rhetorical questions, and Annie’s closing plea.

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Tone and Style

Annie’s approach is informal, chatty, and deeply empathetic—walking the listener step-by-step through the complexity, while drawing out how these “headline” crimes devastate ordinary families. She doesn’t shy from editorializing when it comes to injustice or toxic personalities (“total creep,” “dick bag,” “slimeball”). She’s engaging and relatable, often posing rhetorical questions or encouraging listener reflection—making this an immersive true crime breakdown for both newcomers and devoted followers.

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Conclusion

This episode of Serialously is a comprehensive and gripping retelling of the “Howell and Buchanan garage deaths”—a case defined by betrayals, tragic consequences, systemic investigative failures, and, ultimately, the resilience of families striving to find truth. Annie Elise delivers both the facts and emotional nuance, offering her listeners the full landscape of this dark chapter in true crime history.

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For discussion, reactions, or theories, Annie invites comments on YouTube or Apple Podcasts.

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For more content, check out new episodes of the 10 to Life podcast, as cross-promoted at episode’s end.

Transcript

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[Annie Elise]

For almost 20 years it was believed to be suicide. Two people devastated by the breakdown of their marriages.

[True Crime Commentator]

And so they had a dysfunctional relationship. It wasn't a relationship. This was a massive story. It had sex, it had drugs, it had greed, it had betrayal. I would suggest that anybody who has an affair will always think they'd be better off their partner.

[Annie Elise]

Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Asleep. Hello, hello, hello. And welcome back to an all new episode of Serial as Lee with me, Annie Elise, your true crime bestie here to break down another case. And I will say this is a case that came directly from one of you listeners, a request. And we get requests all the time. But this request for this case, I don't know, it just instantly grabbed me like I felt like there was so much to it that I had not only never heard about this case but but I felt like there were a lot of twists and turns in it as well. And so I knew, I was like, yeah, okay, we need to like talk about this on the podcast and I need to share it with everybody because today's case takes place in Northern Ireland. Also back in the early 90s. However, there are new developments that have happened in 2025. So it kind of makes it still feel like, you know, current event new age case. Today it's about two entire families whose lives were turned completely upside down by a horrific disgust discovery one day in May. However, the details surrounding this tragedy, they really only brought up more Questions than answers. And for years, everyone kind of just settled with what they thought they knew to be the truth of this case. However, sometimes, as we know, the truth can be very deceiving. So, like I said, today's case, it is full of twists and turns. We're talking affairs, deception, murder. Very shocking revelations, some conflicting stories. It really has so many different elements to it. And I will say this, the real shock, it didn't happen inside a house, but rather it was what was found inside the garage, because a car was parked right inside the garage with a dead man in the front seat. Then a second body just quietly tucked away in the trunk, also with personal effects scattered all over it. Now, what's weird is that the whole scene, it looked very calm, almost staged, but something immediately felt wrong with it. And that is sure enough, when everything started to unravel. So let's rewind a little bit and go back. It was 1991, and the Howell family was one that was a very prominent and well regarded family in Knocklade park area in Northern Ireland. The head of the household was Colin Howell, a dentist by day and. And a lay preacher by night, which, don't worry, I'm gonna describe what that means in a minute here. Now, his wife, Leslie Howell, had once studied to become a nurse. However, she put those plans aside to focus on her role of mother and homemaker. And Leslie was described as someone who was just very warm and welcoming. She had this incredible sense of humor. But whenever she needed to get down to business and be serious, she certainly could. She was just incredibly driven and she had this major sense of ambition. So Colin and Leslie met while the two of them were in college, and their romance kind of just sparked from there. Colin was studying to become a dentist at Queen's University, while Leslie, as I said, was studying nursing at a school in Belfast. And Leslie had always excelled academically as well. So really it was no shock to anyone when she took on the challenge of nursing school and just like, made it seem like a cakewalk and just like, you know, crushed it from the start. Now, one of the main things that Colin and Leslie had in common was their devotion to the Baptist faith. In fact, they had actually met each other at church. So they got married in 1983, and from there it seemed like they kind of had the marriage that anybody would hope and dream for. They loved each other, they wanted to start a family together, and it just seemed perfect. So after getting married, they moved to Knocklade park and they immediately began building a life for themselves. Colin started his own dental business and pretty much immediately business was doing just incredibly well. And Leslie was there supporting him, supporting his dream and his business. Now he may have been the one who was bringing in the money, but Leslie certainly had her hands full as well because after they got married they began having kids as quickly as possible. And in just a few short years by 1991 they had four children together. Ages ranging all the way from a few months old to six years old. Now the Howell's social lives pretty much consisted of going to work or in Leslie's case, getting up and taking care of the kids, making sure they were wherever they needed to be, taking care of, taking care of the home, cooking dinner for the family of six and then going to church. Because church was a huge part of not only their social lives but just their lives in general. And like I mentioned earlier, Colin was a lay preacher, which in his faith it essentially means that he wasn't ordained. He also didn't have any degrees to be considered an actual minister, but he did preach. He would also play the guitar on Sundays. He was the leader of the youth fellowship group. He volunteered in any of the youth activities, any that he could be a part of. And his wife Leslie was also heavily involved in the church. I couldn't find the exact roles that she played, but she was there very often as well. She was also the kind of person who always would offer a helping hand or you know, help out with youth activities, all sorts of things. So all in all they had four beautiful children, a very successful business, a lovely home, I mean just everything that a family could dream to have, right? So when tragedy struck In May of 1991, extended family and friends of the Howells were not only completely grief stricken

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

by this, but they were very shocked

[Annie Elise]

and confused by everything that had gone down. It all started around 8:30am on May 19. That morning Colin called one of his church elders, a person who is referred to in this case as Witness A. And as soon as Witness A answered the phone he could tell that Colin was in a complete panic. So he told him calm down, explain what's going on, like just take a beat, take a breath. And Colin claimed that Leslie was missing and that he needed help finding her. Apparently her car was gone and she had been gone all night. Now there were obviously some follow up questions to that, right? I mean, did Colin have any idea where she could have gone? When did he last see her? Did they have some sort of argument? And interestingly enough, Colin did have all of the answers to those Questions, he had claimed that he believed Leslie went by her dad's old house. So this pastor went over and drove by this house and. But he didn't see Leslie's car. So he got back in touch with Colin, told him Leslie wasn't there, but said he would keep looking and he would start asking around after his church service that morning to see if anybody had heard from her or seen her. So while he waited, instead of going to the police, Colin just kept asking people around him for help. The next person that he called is referred to as Witness C. And Colin called Witness C at around 9am again claiming that Leslie was missing and that he needed help finding her. Again, he claimed that she was likely at her dad's old house, which I will explain a little bit more later. And Witness C was more than willing to help. And once again, this other witness now started heading toward Leslie's dad's house, hoping that she would be there and hoping that, you know, everything would be fine and this would just be one huge misunderstanding. Now, when he first drove up to the house, it looked pretty empty. Leslie's car wasn't out front. The lights all seemed to be off inside the house, and basically it looked like nobody was home. However, unlike the other witness, for whatever reason, instead of leaving, he decided to go toward the back of the house so that he could look a little bit further and see if anything looked different. And strangely enough, it did look different. When he looked inside the garage window, he saw what he thought was Leslie's car just right there parked in the garage. However, the driver side door was open. Now it was dark and the garage door was shut, so it was really hard to make anything out. So. But before leaving, he also thought that he saw movement in one of the upstairs windows of Leslie's dad's home. So Witness C left and drove back home and relayed this message to Colin, letting him know everything that he had just seen. Now, why Colin didn't go with either one of these witnesses over to Leslie's dad's house, I don't really know. Maybe there was nobody to watch the kids. Maybe Leslie had their only car. Maybe he thought Leslie would come home and he wanted to be there as well, I don't know. But I also wonder why he didn't just go to the police when he felt like his wife was missing. Another answer I don't have. So anyway, after learning from Witness C that Leslie was potentially at this house after all, Colin recalled Witness A, the person who had been the first one to drive by that house. That morning, Colin filled them in saying Leslie is there. He saw the car in the garage. Can you please go by and check again after your service? And this time I will give you the key to Leslie's dad's house so you can actually get inside the house and the garage. Now, witness A was a church man, so of course he was willing to help again. But something about this whole situation just felt off to him, which can you blame him? It feels off to me too. If you now are hearing confirmation that she is at her dad's house, why are you once again asking somebody else to go and check? Why don't you just drive over there, especially if you have the key and you are going to be giving them the key to get inside. But for whatever reason, he decided he was still going to help Colin. However, for his peace of mind, he wanted to bring a police officer with him. This time he wasn't going to go alone. He just wanted to bring this officer in case something was really wrong. I mean, it is the smartest decision after all. So witness A called the police station, he explained everything and he asked if they could do some sort of wellness check on Leslie. And I don't know if it's common for whoever makes the call and the request for a wellness check to then go with the authorities to actually execute the wellness check. But for whatever reason, that is what happened in this scenario. So by the time witness A and this police officer got to Leslie's dad's house, it was around 1:20pm they unlocked the front door, they went through all of the rooms, but they didn't find anyone. They also didn't see anything that was out of the ordinary. None of the lights were on, Everything looked untouched and it seemed as if nobody had been there at all. And they definitely didn't see Leslie anywhere. But that was just the inside of the house because the garage was a totally different story. Inside the garage was a scene that nobody was expecting. Just like the other witness had seen, there was a car inside the garage and it was Leslie's car. And that driver side door was open. And inside the driver's seat was a body. But it wasn't Leslie's body. It was the body of a man. Now obviously this man in the driver's seat, this body did not belong to Leslie's husband, Colin. Obviously not. But his body was not the only one inside that car. They had finally found Leslie too. She was lying inside the trunk of the car. And I know that this may not sound like it's making any sense at all. But I promise it will make more sense here shortly as I start breaking down the details for you. Now, unlike a lot of the scenes that we're used to in these episodes that we cover, this scene was not a bloody one. In fact, Leslie and this man both looked like they were almost just sleeping. Nothing looked out of sorts. However, upon a closer look, it showed that they were both deceased. And the scene around them told what seemed to be a pretty obvious story. Attached to the exhaust pipe of the car was a vacuum cleaner hose. And the other end of that hose was sitting right there in the trunk of the car, next to Leslie's body. And although this man was sitting in the front seat, it probably would not have taken very long for these fumes to reach him, probably not long after they reached Leslie. So the investigators immediately knew what they were dealing with from the jump, and for a few reasons. The first being the way that everything was set up. As sad and as unfortunate as it is, carbon monoxide poisoning, it is a pretty common method in these types of cases. However, contrary to popular belief, it's not necessarily quick or painless. Now, inside the trunk, here's where it gets a little bit eerie. Leslie had all of these family photos scattered around her, Almost like she wanted to be sure that they were the last thing that she would ever see. She also had headphones in her ears, Almost like she was apprehensive about this whole thing. And she wanted something to listen to, something to calm her nerves or something to distract her, which. Okay, so you might be thinking that all makes sense. Maybe she was just grief stricken over something, wanted to take her own life. But who's the guy? Who was Leslie with? Why was she with him? And why would they both want to end their lives, let alone plan to end their lives together as some sort of, I don't know, you know, just at the same time, whether it's a love story or not. And you're not alone. Because when I first heard about this case, that's one of the main questions I had, is like, something here isn't adding up. And everybody else wanted to know the exact same things as well. Well, the man ended up being identified as Trevor Buchanan, And Trevor was a local to the area. He was 32 years old, and he was a husband, father, and local police officer. Now, I don't know if you have ever suffered a very close loss in your life before. Hopefully you haven't. But I'm sure that if you haven't directly felt that you at the Very least, maybe know someone who has. And I will say sometimes deaths can bring up a lot of family drama. Also a lot of family secrets. A lot of things just start to surface. And this case was no different. The deaths of both Trevor and Leslie brought a lot to light. First and foremost, being Leslie and Trevor were not strangers to one another. Trevor and his wife Hazel went to the same church as Leslie and Colin. And the couples knew each other pretty well. I mean, they spent plenty of time at church together and they also both had kids who were in all of the youth activities together. Hazel was the Sunday school teacher and she was a daycare worker at the church. She was also an assistant teacher at the school that Colin and Leslie's daughter went to. So they were always running into one another, whether at church or at the school, wherever it may be. And I don't think that they all necessarily would ever hang out with one another on the weekends or set up play, play dates for the kids. But they certainly knew each other and they were friendly. However, what a lot of people hadn't realized was that Colin, Leslie's husband, and Hazel, Trevor's wife, they were way, way, way more than friendly. They had been having a full blown affair with one another that had began a year prior, all the way back in the spring of 1990. For months, Colin and Hazel would flirt back and forth, exchange these little flirty looks and, you know, small comments and things like that whenever their spouses weren't around. And then that tension kept building and building. Then one day during swimming lessons that were, by the way, organized by the church, Colin finally admitted to Hazel that he had been thinking about her for quite some time. Not as a friend, not as a fellow church member. But he told her that he had been having very real, very graphic sexual fantasies involving the two of them together. He wanted them to be more than friends. And he felt like he could not keep that secret to himself any longer. And apparently he backpedaled a little bit after telling her that, being like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for not having innocent thoughts about you, which I think was maybe just to try to, I don't know, make her feel at ease or almost like reverse psychology to see if she would bite a little bit. And she did because she responded by saying, well, I'm not that innocent myself. And from there this affair just exploded. Both Hazel and Colin expressed it to one another that they were just bored in their marriages. They wanted to be together. They wanted to have this sexual fantasy play out with one another. Hazel Also explained that she was very different from Trevor, which. Let's talk about their relationship a little bit and their marriage. They had married when Trevor was 22 years old and Hazel was just 17 years old. Now, Hazel took her role as a mother and a homemaker very seriously. However, Hazel's family described her as being somebody who was very materialistic, somebody who could be difficult to handle at times. She always wanted the latest and greatest furniture, clothing, all these things just to. For appearances sake, just to look a certain way. She didn't even care if it would ever cut into the family funds. That was her priority. And you know what? Trevor apparently didn't really mind. It was kind of like whatever made Hazel happy. He loved being a husband and father to their children, but he also cared about appearances, too. And he felt like whatever Hazel was doing, she was doing well. Now, as for Colin and Leslie, their marriage apparently had been on the rocks for a while. Everybody saw them as this happy family, but that was just the mask that they were presenting on the outside. Inside their marriage was an entirely different story. Today's episode is sponsored by O Positive.

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[Annie Elise]

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[Annie Elise]

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[Annie Elise]

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[Annie Elise]

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[Annie Elise]

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[Annie Elise]

Now. It's hard to pinpoint the one thing that was the breaking point for Colin to feel like his only option in all of this was to have this affair. But there were honestly a lot of different things going on in the marriage. There were money problems. Even though Colin's business was doing very well, they still somehow had managed to get into a lot of debt before the business had even opened. And I say they, but it really was Colin's doing. He wanted the best of the best technology for the business, which to some extent, yes, can be good. He was investing in himself, but sometimes too with a brand new startup company you want to be financially smart, you have to settle for what you can afford, then splurge once you have money coming in. So this debt was kind of like this now constant argument and point of contention in their marriage. Then there was also the fact that Colin had cheated once before. Hazel was not the first woman that he had these less than innocent thoughts about while he was married to Leslie. Now we can probably all agree cheating is always pretty gross and slimy. However, the affair that happened before Hazel actually happened during Leslie's third pregnancy. So that is like extra slimy and gross and just like disgusting. And I'm not sure how she found out, but she did. And Colin of course did the typical cheater thing. He said how sorry he was, how it was a one time thing, he would never do it again, he regretted it, he broke things off with this girl like it'll never happen again. To which Leslie said okay, well I'm gonna just double check on that. And she called the other woman up and said like I wanna know the truth, is it over? What's going on? How long was this going on? And the woman told her that it was over between her and Colin. So Leslie decided she was just going to put it all behind her and move forward. Maybe it's because of the hormones of the third pregnancy, maybe it's because they had a family that they were raising together and she wanted to give him another chance, who knows? But she decided that she was going to put it behind her and move forward with Colin, albeit yes, still some trust issues moving forward. I mean there was always going to be a lack of trust on Leslie's end. Moving forward and for good reason. So now fast forward and Colin is once again having an affair, this time with Hazel. Leslie started to have her suspicions and so did Hazel's husband Trevor. One time, in fact, Trevor walked in on a really suspicious scene. Apparently he had found Colin and Hazel inside their house all alone. And he hadn't known that Colin was going to be coming over to their house that day, so he immediately found it weird. But Colin apparently had a guitar with him. So he claimed that Hazel just wanted some guitar lessons. Which I have to say at first I didn't know why he even had the guitar with him. I don't think that was like forward thinking on his part to have some sort of excuse. But it ended up being a good excuse because the truth was Hazel had actually invited him over under the guise of a guitar lesson. Although it turned out to be anything but that. Colin even later said that even though he brought his guitar with him for this quote unquote guitar lesson, he had a feeling that it was going to be this secret tryst that they were going to begin having. Apparently when Colin showed up, Hazel opened the door wearing a very short denim skirt and a sleeveless low cut top. And that's something that she never wore out in public, never wore it to the church, never wore it to the schools, never. So I mean it was pretty obvious there was not going to be any guitar playing that day. I mean not unless he's like serenading her before they get in the sack. I don't know which would be so disgusting and creepy on a whole nother level. But anyway, so Trevor knew that something was immediately off, like his spidey senses were going up. And he may not have caught them in the physical act, but he had unknowingly or maybe knowingly caught them cheating. And sure enough, Colin and Hazel would meet at each other's houses whenever it was possible. And if it wasn't possible, Hazel would just come to his office. It was fun for them. They were excited about this whole thing. It felt dangerous, it felt Secretive. And they never seemed to worry if their spouses would find out about this despite both Leslie and Trevor getting suspicious. Now as for Leslie, she never actually caught Colin and Hazel in the act or even in the same like room or bedroom like Trevor once had. But she wasn't stupid. She had gone through something like this with her husband before. So once you go through something like that, you know the behavior, you know the signs, you know the intuition in your gut and what that feeling feels like. And the first red flag apparently happened when Leslie caught Colin talking on the phone with Hazel. Remember they were friends through the church, through the school, but they weren't good friends that ever hung out on the weekend or ever talked with one another. So the fact that she caught him on the phone with Hazel, that was weird. And she clocked it and knew that it was weird. But then Leslie overheard Colin seemingly trying to arrange an in person meetup with Hazel and that's when her heart sank. She now knew her intuition was right. So she confronted Colin about it. To which he completely gaslit her. He denied there being any sort of affair. He said that they are just friends, but Leslie was like a dog with a bone. She wouldn't let it go. And he's like, look, it is just a platonic relationship. We are just friends. You have nothing to worry about. You're overreacting again. Gaslighting her now, this really was not a good enough answer for Leslie. She knew in her gut that something was wrong. But she also knew that Colin was not going to just be truthful and tell her everything that was going on. She also didn't have any proof that anything was happening. So she was kind of stuck in that weird gray area that unfortunately I'm sure a lot of us have been in at some point or another in our lives where it's like, you know something's going on but you don't have proof. So you're trying to talk yourself into the fact that you're not crazy and you're just waiting on the proof, but you don't want the proof because then it's going to solidify your worst fears. And that's where Leslie was at. She was like spinning and stewing, knowing that it was happening and, and happening right under her nose. But she didn't have any proof and Colin, being the dick bag that he is, wasn't admitting anything to her and he was just continuing to gaslight her. However, then one weekend Colin was being extra suspicious. He claimed that he was leaving for the weekend to go on A golf trip with one of his buddies. And I don't know if this is something that he never did or if it just happened at a time when Leslie was already suspicious of him. But she wasn't buying it. Not for a second. But she still couldn't prove anything. She even tried going to the friend that Colin said that he was going on this golfing trip with, but the friend said that this entire golfing trip was true, which is like. That sucks, too, when guys cover for other guys with their lies. It's just, again, gross. So unsure of what else to do, Leslie turned to her faith. It had always helped her get through tough times in the past. So if she felt like she was onto something and needed a little guidance, this time wasn't going to be any different. She was going to rely on her faith. So she went to her pastor and she explained everything. The cheating that Colin had done before, her suspicions and fears, all of it. Now, remember, the pastor and Colin knew each other well. He ends up being one of the witnesses who went over looking for Leslie the morning that all of this discovery had happened. Right? So, luckily, the pastor took Leslie's cries for help seriously. He didn't run to Colin and tell him to hide his potential affair like this other friend had done. He didn't cover for him. And in fact, he went to Colin's dental office and confronted him head on. Now, Colin's reaction was one of anger and shock. He basically told this guy who, remember, is his good friend and pastor. He said, leslie's way out of line. I'm absolutely not having an affair with Hazel or anybody else for that matter. You guys are way out of line here. Like, you need to check yourself. This is crazy. Which the pastor is kind of like, okay, whatever you say. But he, like, Leslie, wasn't stupid. So he did the next smartest thing that he could think of, and he went to Hazel asking her the same thing. Cause remember, the Howells and the Buchanans are all members of this church. And Hazel was not as strong as Colin was in the face of her pastor. As soon as he was in front of her, as soon as he was confronting her and accusing her of having this affair, she just completely folded, or at least halfway folded. And she said that she was, in fact, having an affair, but it was just an emotional one, not a physical one, which that was extremely, very far from the truth. The affair was full of all sorts of different sexual escapades. Wherever Colin and Hazel could manage to be together, they were. And it had been going on for months at this point. And as for that weekend that Colin claimed to be going on a golf trip, well, he had actually been with Hazel that weekend, but it was far, far, far from a romantic getaway. It turns out that Colin and Hazel had gotten themselves into a little bit of a situation. Hazel found out that she was pregnant, and to be honest, she had no idea if the baby was Trevor, her husband's, or Collins. So after learning about the pregnancy, Hazel was pretty stuck on what to do. She never wanted her husband to find out about this affair. So potentially being pregnant with another man's baby was definitely going to be a huge wrench in that plan. Now, Colin wasn't as stuck on what to do. He wanted her to terminate the pregnancy and he wanted her to do it fast. If the baby was his, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. And he somehow convinced Hazel that if she kept it, it would not only ruin her marriage, but his as well. However, terminating a pregnancy in Ireland back in the late 80s, early 90s, and as a devout Baptist, I mean, that was very heavily frowned upon. Hazel had never had one before and she didn't want to even do it in the first place. She didn't want one, period. However, Colin just kept pushing her to have it taken care of, being like, it's not as big of a deal as you think it is. Just do it, get rid of it, take care of it. He also confided in her that in the year before he and Leslie ever got married, Leslie had terminated three pregnancies. Then in the seven months after their marriage, she terminated two more pregnancies. Now, whether or not that was true or he was just trying to make her feel better, Hazel really didn't know. But the uncertainty of who the father was really started to push her to the edge, because Colin and Trevor, they did not look alike at all. So if she moved forward with this pregnancy and it was Colin's baby, but she pretended that it was Trevor's baby, it would have been pretty obvious, number one, because Colin and Leslie's kids were all born with very light hair. Also, their kids had a hereditary condition that caused them to have webbed toes. So if she had this baby and this baby came out with webbed toes, the affair would have been aired out as soon as this baby was delivered. I mean, it would have been obvious that it was Collins. So the weekend that Colin told Leslie that he was going golfing, he and Hazel were actually together in England, ending her pregnancy. So now let's go back to when this pastor confronted Hazel about this. She folded and said that she was having an emotional affair with Colin. And I don't know if the pastor is the one who ended up telling Trevor and Leslie about this or if he told the spouses, Colin and Hazel, that they needed to come clean. But for whatever reason, Trevor and Leslie did learn about the affair, and understandably, they were heartbroken by it. However, despite how soul crushing the news of this emotional affair had been, it didn't end up in two divorces and Hazel and Colin running off into the sunset together. It was actually the complete opposite. They both told their spouses how sorry they were, how they regretted it, how it would never happen again, and how they knew that it was wrong and just were extremely apologetic. But they said they wanted to make their marriages work. Leslie and Trevor were obviously both very upset, but they also felt like they weren't going to just end things and move on. So all four parties seemed like they were willing to work to rebuild their marriages. Meanwhile, Hazel and Colin were both punished by the church internally, and they had to step down from their positions that they held, which it was kind of like this public display of humiliation because everybody in the congregation learned why they had to step down. On top of that, they were also instructed to do separate marriage counseling with the pastor and their spouses. So for a while, things seemed to be going about as smoothly as they could, given the situation. Hazel and Trevor were working on their marriage. Colin and Leslie were working on their marriage. And after this whole revelation, Colin and Hazel did actually end their affairs. So it seemed like everything was going back to normal. However, Leslie was struggling and it sucks. But a lot of us know the feeling of being cheated on. It makes you feel worthless, unloved, unlovable, unworthy, all of the different emotions. I could go on and on describing that feeling all day long. It's awful, it's terrible. It gives you a pit in your stomach, and it's just. It's soul crushing. But this also was not the first time that she had dealt with this with Colin. And I don't know, maybe I'm way off my mark here, but maybe she also felt like once a cheater, always a cheater. It's only a matter of time before this happens for the third time. And once again, I'm back in this position. I would imagine that the trust that she once had for him was probably long gone. So Leslie really started to become a shell of herself. She was clearly depressed. She didn't find joy in any of the things that she once had. She wasn't as outgoing of a person as she was before, and every day just felt. Felt like a challenge just to make it to the next day. She was also on antidepressants, but they didn't do a whole lot for her mental health. Eventually, she turned to drinking heavily on top of taking her meds, which. That is a very scary slope to go down. And then one day, she hit rock bottom. It had been a fairly normal day. Leslie and Colin had their marriage counseling sessions with the pastor. But for whatever reason, Colin was feeling like he wanted to be extra honest that day. So during that session, he admitted to everything. Not that this was an emotional affair, but that it was a physical affair. And as he was confessing, he started saying how he and Hazel had been having sex for so long, quite some time, how they had gotten away with it for so long, how they had to terminate a pregnancy because of it. I mean, everything. He came clean for real this time, and it was almost like the floodgates just opened up and right in front of Leslie, who was already just, you know, evaporating into a shell of herself, learning that this wasn't just an emotional affair, even though that's devastating enough, but learning that it was truly physical, like she had feared so much so that they had gotten pregnant together. I mean, it was just heartbreaking. Overwhelmed by the news and feeling lied to yet again, she excused herself out of the session to go to the bathroom. However, the sad thing, and the devastating thing about this is Leslie hadn't hoped to ever come out of that bathroom alive again. She had a bunch of those pills with her in her purse, and she took all of them in one just heaping gulp all at once to try and attempt to take her own life and overdose. However, pretty quickly, Colin and the pastor knew that something was up when she wasn't coming back from the bathroom. So they went in, found her, and they got Leslie to the hospital before anything bad happened to her, which is just heartbreaking. I mean, this woman had gone through so much. And what makes me furious, and I'm

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[Annie Elise]

of you guys listening furious, is that after Leslie's attempt on her own life, Colin reached out to Hazel to confide in her and started the affair right back up again. He claimed that he was just reaching out to make sure that Hazel was happy and moving on and things were okay. But apparently the temptation of being in contact again was just too much for either of them. And it all just started right back up, which, I mean, talk About a total creep, right? Your wife just tried to take her own life because she is so distraught over your affair and the lies that you have told and finding out that the affair was truly physical. But now you're going to start it up again with Hazel and put her through all of this again and see how far you can really push her over the edge. It's sick. It is truly just disgusting. This guy sucks. Now, the information surrounding this second wave of the affair, it's pretty lackluster. One source said that Leslie had again become aware of it, but was just over it by that point and was so emotionally shut down and detached that she didn't have any sort of big reaction, maybe just numb to all of it. Maybe that's the better way to describe it. But then to make things even worse, Leslie's dad died. And she had been very close with her dad. So all of that to say Leslie was not okay, and she hadn't been for a while. She was understandably in a very fragile mental state and it seemed like it was just one bad thing after another, just continuously beating her down. And while Trevor had seemed like he was doing okay and moving forward, men's mental health was definitely not talked about much back then. And I'm generalizing here a little bit, but basically it was a time and a place where men felt like they had to hide their true feelings. Not really going to therapy, not being on medication, not showing if they were depressed, but kind of trying to be the man in everything. So now, looking at this discovery in the garage and knowing the history and the backstory of all of it, would it be all that shocking that the two of them decided to take their own lives? Everyone put two and two together. By this point. Trevor and Leslie were two grief stricken spouses who could not bear the thought of continuing on, knowing that the people that they loved the most had completely turned their backs on them. And in the most horrific way possible, it made sense. The two of them didn't want to go on living without their spouses, who were once again back entangled with one another. So that was the story. And that's what everybody believed, and that's what made the most sense. And it was the narrative that stuck for 18 more years until the truth about what happened finally came out.

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Now, the years that followed Trevor and Leslie's deaths, they were very difficult. Remember, they both had young kids. They had to navigate life now, living without their parent, and it was really difficult. But something else that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way about Colin and Hazel through all of this was that even after their spouses were gone, they just continued their relationship. And this wasn't something that they necessarily hid either. Both of them were literally kicked out of the church for everything that happened. And Hazel's friends all warned her that Colin is certainly not a good guy. Nobody approved of this relationship, but she didn't care what anybody thought. And just as a little timeline reminder here, Trevor and Leslie died in 1991, and it wasn't until five years later, in 1996, that that Colin and Hazel actually ended their relationship. Which how you could do that in good conscience, I truly have absolutely no idea. But they just continued being together after these deaths. Now, the way that Hazel described it is that she loved the thrill that this relationship gave her. Colin was someone who, quote, took risks, as she described it and those risks literally gave her this kind of buzz or high. She claimed that at one time she did love him, but that over time the relationship faded and that's what ultimately broke the two of them up. It wasn't because both of their spouses had ended their lives. It wasn't because the affair was exposed. It wasn't because the church kicked them out. It was because she just wasn't feeling Colin anymore. She was over it. So then after they broke up, they moved on and went their separate ways. Colin met an American woman named Kyle and the two of them had five more kids together. Meaning now Colin had nine kids in total by this time point. And Hazel also moved on, marrying yet another police officer, a guy named David Stewart. Now, Hazel didn't go on to have any more children, so she just had the children from her previous relationship or

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marriage, which it seems like that would

[Annie Elise]

be the end of the story, right? A senseless affair that broke apart two families. Leslie and Trevor were forever known as two people who just could not face the harsh realities of what their lives had now become. And their spouses leaving them and their friends and family never forgot them. And over time, the sensation around their death started to fade into the background. And a lot of people started talking less and less about what happened that day. Until one day in 2009, 18 years after Leslie and Trevor had died, Colin Howell walked into his local police station with one goal in mind. He had a confession to make. For years, Colin had been hiding a very big secret that he just couldn't, could not hold in any longer. It all started on May 13, 1991, just five days before Leslie and Trevor died. Now, this was during the time that Leslie was not doing well mentally. She had just rediscovered Colin and Hazel's affair after they had claimed that they were completely done with one another. Her dad had just passed away. I mean, she was going through it. She was overwhelmed with grief over her dad, over her marriage. And before bed that night, Leslie apparently told Colin that he had wrecked both her and Trevor's lives. Then around 2 or 3am, Leslie apparently sat up in bed and told Colin that she was going to be in heaven soon. Also that maybe he hadn't wrecked their lives and that maybe he and Hazel were meant to be together. Now, imagining this whole scene, I have to say, is pretty heartbreaking because remember this was after Leslie had tried to overdose. So it seems like maybe this was another cry for help. Maybe she was going to take her own life, being like, I'm going to be in Heaven soon. Maybe you're just not meant to be with me. Maybe you're meant to be with her. But instead of being a good human and a good husband and being worried about his wife and the mother of his children, Colin used this as an opportunity to plan and to, you know, get a little bit calculated thinking, hey, maybe Leslie just cracked the code for me. Because to me it sounds like Leslie wants to die, so why not make that happen? Which, yes, it did seem like she was having these ideations and he could have just waited for her to do it herself, which is a horrifying thought in and of itself. But that wouldn't solve all of his problems, because think about it from Colin's twisted perspective. If Leslie was ever successful in her attempts, that would only solve half of Colin and Hazel's problems. There still would be Trevor to deal with. And he never had expressed any depression or any thoughts of taking his own life. So if that's what they were waiting on, they may as well have been waiting forever. Leslie taking her own life only solved Leslie in the equation, not Trevor. So to Colin, this was a fairly easy solution. Both Leslie and Trevor needed to be killed, but it had to look like it was at their own hand, that it was their doing. So the following day, on the 14th, he met with Hazel and he gave her the plan. Now, he said that she seemed very confused by exactly how all of this was going to work, which, honestly, he kind of makes her out to be this dumb blonde stereotype anytime he talks about her. But he said that it was very clear that she knew that the plan was to kill Leslie and Trevor. And he claimed that her only worry was about getting caught. So the night of Saturday, May 18, 1991, which was when everything happened, Leslie apparently had started this new habit of sleeping on the couch, not wanting to be in bed near her husband Colin. And that night before bed, she had once again been drinking very heavily. Now, what's insane is that Colin told the police that seeing how Leslie was that night only solidified his plans, knowing that he didn't want to be with her any longer. And he worded it like it was some sort of mercy killing, like taking her out of her misery so that she was no longer drowning in her sorrows. His words, not mine. So he sat in the living room watching Leslie until he knew that she was in a very deep sleep. And then he went into the garage, he got out the garden hose that he had already picked out, waiting for the right time to just attach it to the back of Their car. He attached everything together, walked the hose into the house, into the living room, and turned the car on. Now, what's so crazy in all of this is all four of their children were upstairs sleeping and he was just pumping this carbon monoxide into the house, into the living room, where these fumes could easily reach his children. Now, was he just being a reckless or did he truly not care? And was he going to just say, Leslie did this? I don't know, but it's so crazy to even think about. So after waiting for a while, he started to worry that it was taking too long for the living room to fill up with these fumes. He was also afraid that she was going to wake up in the middle of all of this. And if she did, then what? He couldn't kill her any other way, or it would be obvious that she was murdered and that it wasn't self inflicted. So he carefully moved the hose closer to her and then he tucked it underneath the quilt that she was laying underneath as a blanket. Now, what's incredibly sad is Leslie did wake up, but she was unfortunately so overcome and weak already by these fumes that she couldn't fight back. She couldn't muster the strength to do anything. She was able to yell for her oldest son, Matthew, but it wasn't loud enough to do any good. She knew what was happening to her. She knew what her husband was doing to her, but she was too weak at that point to do anything. And the entire time that she was trying to call for her son and trying to muster up the strength to move, Colin was just watching from the living room doorway, having the door just cracked open enough to where he could see everything. Then, once he was sure that Leslie was dead, he went over, turned off the ignition to the car, and he waited 15 more minutes before going over to her body. Because he wanted to be sure that he wouldn't accidentally take himself out in the process and be overcome by the fumes. So he picked up Leslie's body and he put it in the trunk of the car. Then he threw a bedsheet and a bike on top of her, trying to hide her body and conceal it. He then called his girlfriend Hazel to let her know that Leslie was dead. And now the next step of the plan was in motion. They needed to kill Trevor. They had come up with a secret code so that the other person would know what was going on and what time of the plan. It all was kind of without actually having to say into the phone, like, I just killed my wife. Time for Us to go kill your husband. So Colin would call Hazel but hang up before the first ring so that the only thing that Hazel would hear on her end is a click. Now, that's how it was described, because remember, this was a landline thing at the time, not a cell phone. So once Hazel heard the click that night, she knew that Leslie was gone and that Trevor would be next. So Colin arrived at the Buchanan family home, and the scene was pretty much the same as at the Howell home. It was late at night, the kids were in bed asleep. Trevor was sleeping in his bedroom while Hazel snuck off to meet Colin outside and go over the plan. Now, Hazel didn't want to be the one to set everything up, which I don't know if she thought that that made her any less responsible for what happened. But for whatever reason, she decided to sit in the room next to the bedroom while Colin did all of the dirty work in the plan. So Colin tried to set everything up like he had done with Leslie. He placed the hose on the pillow next to Trevor's head and then sat in the doorway just waiting for the effects and the fumes to kick in, hoping that Trevor wouldn't wake up. And again, just as reckless as before with all of the kids still inside the house. Now, the difference between Leslie and Trevor is that Trevor did wake up like Leslie, but he was strong and he fought. He was half asleep and still a little groggy, but he was able to lift his head off the pillow and look around, and he was very confused by the hose that was just sitting next to his face. He also was confused why Hazel wasn't in bed next to him. But before he could figure out what was happening, Colin stormed into the room, grabbed the hose, and he tried to put the bed sheet over Colin's head, almost like suffocating him under the sheet with the hose in there. Kind of like, what would you call it? Not like a Dutch oven kind of, but like, you know what I mean, where it's just like concealed in there. Now, by this point, Trevor was much more awake and aware of what was going on. So he was flailing his arms around, fighting back, doing whatever he could do to get these fumes away from his face. And for a second, it almost worked. Trevor managed to knock Colin off of him and onto the floor, where they kept fighting with each other. And I'm not sure if Trevor had already had too much fumes in his system at this point or if Colin was able to overpower him just because of st strength, but for whatever Reason he did manage to get on top of Trevor. Then he grabbed the hose and he shoved it into Trevor's mouth between his teeth, which, can you imagine how horrific that is? I mean, certainly not a mercy killing. You're shoving this hose of carbon monoxide down somebody's throat. Colin claimed that Trevor took one single deep inhale and his body immediately went limp. Now, by this point, Colin had also been in contact with the fumes almost as much as Trevor had. So he could feel himself getting very dizzy. He was able to stumble out of the room and get outside of it without collapsing in just enough time. But he then went and sat outside trying to breathe in fresh air, hoping that he hadn't inadvertently poisoned himself in all of this. Eventually the air helped and he was able to collect himself and move on to the next step in this place plan, which, again, it is so crazy to me, the fact that Hazel and Colin were both desperate enough in all of this that they were willing to enact this plan with their children in the house. Clearly the fumes got to Colin himself. Who's to say it couldn't have reached the children's bedrooms, right? It is so, so insane and like, such an awful risk. But obviously they didn't care. Now, during the entire thing, Hazel had been in the other room plugging her ears and pretending that she didn't know what was going on in the room next to her. But after Colin knew that Trevor was dead, he dragged his body into the trunk of the car with Leslie putting yet again another bedsheet and the bike on top of their bodies. And I'm guessing that this was in case he ever got pulled over or if there was something else to where they would just be hidden under this. He then instructed Hazel to get rid of the hose, to cut it up and to burn it in their fireplace, which would effectively get rid of the murder weapon. Then he told her to stay at her house, but he wouldn't tell her where he was going with the bodies or what he was going to do with them. He was planning on staging the scene at a beach in Castle Rock, but then he changed his mind because he thought it was too public. So instead he drove the car to Leslie's dad's house. Remember, he had just passed away, so nobody was going to be inside that home. And on the way there, he dumped that bike on the side of the road so that he would have a means of transportation to get back home himself. Seemed like it was the perfect setup. So after arriving at Leslie's dad's house. He started staging the scene. He put the car in the garage, the bodies on opposite ends of the vehicle. Then he went back home and he called Hazel to tell her that everything was finished and for her to burn anything left that could potentially be evidence. He also burned the clothes that he had been wearing, the bed sheets and the rubber gloves that he wore during the both of these murders. And it might sound like everything had been set up for the perfect murder. I mean, it sure looked that way for almost two decades. I mean, that's why everybody assumed that the two of them had taken their own lives, right? But the interesting thing about this case is that there were a lot of different suspicious aspects to the case from the start. Things that should have been an indication that something way more sinister went down.

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[Annie Elise]

W a Y F a Wayfair. Every style, every home. Now let's just take a moment to let everything sink in for a second here. In 2009, 18 years after these deaths, Colin was admitting that these two deaths that had already been ruled as self inflicted for nearly two decades had actually been a carefully plotted out double homicide. He had gotten away with it. Why was he coming clean now? While as crazy as Colin's confession seemed coming so long after these murders, this was something that people had been questioning for years. Not everyone had so easily believed that Leslie and Trevor had both decided to give up their Lives and the lives of their children all over in a fair. So let's get into what actually happened and all of the suspicion surrounding their deaths all those years ago, because there is a ton now. Some things were just ignored, and others weren't even looked into, which it's honestly hard to decide which one of the two is more frustrating here. But the first obvious thing was that the investigators just decided to believe the stories of hazel and colin, the stories that they told. I mean, could their stories have been true?

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Sure.

[Annie Elise]

However, they were the two people who would have benefited the most from Leslie and Trevor's deaths. So it seems kind of odd to just take what they say at face value. Also, the witness and the officer who found the bodies were both members of the same church that the howells and the buchanans attended. So they likely knew all of the shady stuff that had gone on before with colin and hazel, the affair, all like having to, you know, be demoted from their positions, all of it. So the fact that nobody raised their hands and was like, hey, this is kind of weird, and they were having an affair together, and now their spouses are dead, like, something just isn't adding up. I mean, the fact that nobody thought to do that, it's really odd to me. Another thing about the actual crime scene itself that was off was the fact that the vacuum hose that was in the car's exhaust pipe, it was really loose. It also even had a kink in it. On top of that, the window in the driver's seat next to Trevor's body was rolled all the way down. And remember, the other end of the hose was in the trunk. Now, yes, sure, if they were in a garage, the fumes would have gotten to them eventually. But if the goal was to just sit in the garage and let the fumes do their thing, why use a hose at all? It didn't make sense. The window being rolled down and the hose stuck in the exhaust pipe Seemed like two very contradictory things. Then also there was the fact that Leslie and Trevor weren't sitting together. If they were going to do this plan together, why would they be on complete opposite ends of the vehicle? Why would leslie choose to lay in the trunk when she could just sit in one of the seats? And even more damning, Trevor's door was open, his leg was sticking out. So if he had gone into the car with the intention of ending his life, he probably would have sat in the front seat with the door closed, not to mention with the window rolled up so that it would be as fast as Possible. Then there's also the fact that the only reason that the investigators ever even found the bodies was. Was because Colin was so dead set on everybody checking the dad's house for them, nobody found it weird that he literally guided people three different times back to this house, almost as if he wanted them to find the bodies. And again, these are all things that could be considered circumstantial or easily explained away, but they are things that needed solid answers regardless. And because foul play was ruled out pretty much immediately, nothing was taken from the garage as evidence. Nothing from the car was ever examined. No fingerprints, no DNA, not even the hose itself. Then we also have things that were just straight up ignored. And I can't even begin to think of a solid reason why. Because these things were far from being circumstantial. Leslie and Trevor's autopsies did confirm that their causes of death were from carbon monoxide poisoning. But the bodies told a very strange story. On Trevor's mouth and nose area were what seemed to be fresh injuries. There was also a small amount of blood coming from the back of his head. Now, these were all things that were captured in postmortem pictures taken at the scene. So it's not like this is something that was based on someone's eyewitness account or something like that. There is actual photographic proof. Yet none of these things were ever looked into. Apparently, at Trevor's wake, at least two different people also questioned the injuries on his mouth and nose. That's how obvious and strange they were. So the detectives looked into it, but barely. They asked Hazel if she remembered Trevor having any of these injuries to his face before his death. But she and Colin had already come up with the perfect explanation. See, apparently, once Colin got back from setting up the bodies, he said that he had noticed a bump to the back of Trevor's head. So he said, hey, if the police ask you about that bump, not even talking about the facial injuries, but if they ask you about that bump, here's what we're gonna say. We're gonna say that Trevor came over to me and Leslie's house and that the two of us ended up getting in a physical fight over the affair starting back up. That's how we'll explain the bump to the back of his head. Because in his head, it showed two really important things. Number one, it answered why they had injuries. Number two, it showed that Trevor had been very distraught and maybe heartbroken before his death. Now, why the investigators weren't even more suspicious after hearing that story, I have no idea. Keep in mind, Trevor was a cop. But again, everything that they said was just taken at face value. Now, as for why Colin finally decided to come forward with the truth after nearly two decades seemingly getting away with double murder. Well, he told the investigators that he wanted to, quote, unburden his soul. And as much as I would love to believe that he did finally feel guilty after all of those years, I really think that he only did it out of desperation. Because in 2008, just one year before this revelation and this confession, Colin got scammed really, really badly. Now, I have no idea how he got wrapped up in this scam, but he was told that this group of people had found gold in the Philippines and that all he had to do was invest in some money and he would get a $40 million payout, which, like, it couldn't have happened to a better guy. I thought that everybody in the world is smarter than these scams, but apparently not. Apparently he fell for and like, God bless that, I am very happy for that. And it sounded crazy, it sounded like a stretch, but Colin was all in talk about greed, right? So initially he invested around $200,000, but then he was told that the gold was buried under tunnels that were booby trapped and that the group was going to need more money in order to get it. Which, I mean, like, again, you can't help but laugh because this is so insane and this guy is such a little fuckbag that he deserves it. So over the next six months, Colin continued sending money to invest in this project. And at one point he even convinced some of his friends to join in on the investment so they could all get rich off of this. But like I said, they all got scammed and Colin was left with essentially nothing. Also, the year before that scam, he and Leslie's oldest son Matthew tragically died. And what's sad is that Matthew's death alone wasn't really a wake up call for Colin. But apparently his death coupled with the scam was all apparently too much for Colin to handle. He said he felt like God was punishing him for what he had done and for the secrets that he had kept. So now he felt like he had to unburden his own soul for his own sake. Which, I mean, Colin was always selfish and I don't know if this truly was for those reasons, but maybe so. In November of 2010, he pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to a minimum of 21 years to life. As for Hazel, she attempted to downplay her role in the murders. She blamed everything on Colin and claimed that she was afraid that if she didn't go through with his plan that he'd kill her and her children. However, that doesn't exactly explain why they stayed together for years after the murders. But, you know, that's besides the point. I digress. Now, during Hazel's trial in 2011, she pleaded not guilty, but the damage had already been done. Because when she had been brought in for questioning and was told that Colin had confessed, she had already done her own fair share of confessing. She confessed that she had heard everything from the other room and that she's the one who got rid of the hose in that fire. And when these interrogation tapes were played in the courtroom for the jurors, I mean, any hopes of her being found not guilty went right out the door. So in 2011, Hazel was convicted of murder under a joint enterprise law, which is something that we really don't see as often in these cases. But essentially, this law allows for multiple people to be held liable for the same crime if they shared a common purpose, even if only one of those people actually did the killing. So she was ultimately sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 18 years. Her team has filed appeal after appeal, but with no luck.

[True Crime Commentator]

While there's immense satisfaction that justice for Trevor has finally been achieved, there's no sense of victory and no cause for celebration, as nothing can bring Trevor and Leslie back to us.

[Annie Elise]

And Hazel has continued to play the victim card. In June of 2025, Hazel and her team filed another appeal to reduce her sentence, citing that she had new medical evidence to prove that she had been suffering from severe mental illnesses at the time. However, the courts rejected it. And look, I get the stress of being in a toxic relationship with a narcissist, but is that really a good enough excuse to aid in murdering two people or to keep it a secret? I mean, was she really going to take their deaths to her grave if Colin hadn't confessed? I think so. I'm very confident about that now. Another scummy thing about Colin in all of this is that not long after confessing to the murders, he also confessed to sexually assaulting six women. These were all clients of his from 1998 to 2008. He would put them under anesthesia in his office, and he would assault them while they were unconscious. And what's even crazier, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's not that crazy, but he even admitted to doing this to Hazel once. So basically, Colin was never a good guy. He was a bad Skeezy, slime ball from the jump. Whether it was him being unfaithful to his wife, plotting a murder, assaulting women, it doesn't matter. This guy through and through deserves to be in hell, in my opinion. I also don't understand what was with all of the family photos that he left on Leslie's body. Remember, at first it looked like she brought those photos with her as some sort of distraction to either look at her kids. She had headphones in her ears to listen to something, to be distracted, but that's obviously not what happened. He did all that post mortem. Why did he put headphones in her ears? Why did he scatter these family photos all around her? Was it to try to paint that narrative and sell that story, or was it out of guilt himself? I don't understand and it hasn't really been talked about that I've seen, so I don't know that we will ever know the answer to that. What the family and friends of both Leslie and Trevor had to go through, I mean, it is unimaginable. They basically had to grieve their loved ones twice. By the time that they finally felt like they probably weren't drowning in this grief and maybe had some sort of acceptance in all of this, they were then hit with this whole new wave of revelations. And think about the kids involved in this, right? Think about the kids then grow, like growing up their whole lives from a very young age thinking that their parent had taken their own life and then learning at an adult age, 18 years later that your other parent is the one responsible for it. That has got to mess with your mind so, so much. And one of Trevor's friends actually explained it in this way. Take a listen.

[True Crime Commentator]

Certainly the revelation surprised me. And again with the valley of hindsight, isn't it great? You know, we can all look back and say, well, you know, there was this, that and the other thing, but nobody ever thought that until the revelations came forward and all this was brought out.

[Annie Elise]

So what was all of this for? For Colin and Hazel just to spend a few more years together free of Leslie and Trevor and then just move on with their lives and not even be together anymore. Like, what was the purpose of all of this? It just seems so, like, over the top and entitled and just like wild. So I'm really curious to hear what you guys think about this case. What do you make of those pictures? What do you think the whole purpose in that was? And I mean, are people that desperate to have an affair, honestly, truly, like, to where you're gonna go to this whole elaborate, like, stagings of the scene and this murder where you're risking killing your own children in the process. Like, like I always say, guys, just get a divorce. It sounds so simple, but obviously it's not. So let me know your comments and your thoughts either in the Apple review section of this podcast or in the comment section on YouTube. And as a reminder, we have another all new episode coming out tomorrow, but it will be on the 10 to Life podcast. So if you're listening to this, the audio version, make sure you're following our 10 to Life podcast as well. It's a separate podcast, but we have new episodes every single Tuesday over there. So I will be back with you tomorrow with an all new episode over on 10 to Life. And for anybody watching on YouTube, it'll be right here on YouTube, the main YouTube channel. Annie Elise. All right, thank you guys so much. And until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, don't have any affairs, and just get a divorce. Bye.

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