Chiswick beauty salon murderer expresses remorse

Rena Salmon, the woman who killed her love rival with a shotgun in a Chiswick beauty salon, has given an interview which is to be broadcast on TV. In a phone conversation with a journalist from ITV's Real Crime she tells of her regret for her actions on that day in September 2002 when she walked into what is now the Red Chat salon and gunned down Lorna Stewart.

In the interview, given by phone from a secure hospital in the Oxford area, Salmon tells of how devastated she was when she heard that husband Paul was planning to leave her and start a family with Ms. Stewart.

She tells the reporter that she is living with regret every day and that it had been a selfish act on her part for which her two children had suffered. On the day of the murder she drove to the salon, shot two months pregnant Lorna Stewart and then lit a cigarette whilst she waited for the police to arrive. She claims in the interview her original intention was commit suicide in front of Ms. Stewart.

Salmon had an appeal against her murder conviction turned down two years ago. She had claimed that she had committed the crimes because of her mental state and accused her own mother of physical abuse against her.

The programme will be broadcast at 11pm on Tuesday 27th February. Others involved in the case, including defence psychiatrist Professor Nigel Eastmen and QC Peter Clarke, will examine how it unfolded.

February 24, 2007