I loved her... but I'd kill her again (From Worcester News)

I loved her... but I'd kill her again

3:00pm Tuesday 10th July 2012 in News By Richard Vernalls, @rvernallsWN #worcsnews

THE American millionaire serving 16 years for fatally stabbing his wife outside their country home in rural Worcestershire says he “loved her to death”.

In a recent interview for US television network CBS, Harold Landry spoke candidly about the night he killed his wife on the private Besford Court estate at Besford, near Pershore, in 2010.

In the interview, Landry says: “I accept the fact I’ve murdered my wife. I accept the fact I killed my wife.”

Meanwhile, the 66-year-old has now instructed a London-based law firm to appeal his murder conviction, and his sentence – although papers have not yet been filed at the Royal Courts of Justice.

We reported at the time of his trial how Landry plunged a kitchen knife into his wife of 10 years Lucy Landry in February 2010, in the midst of their divorce.

The 38-year-old died at the scene and Landry was later captured by police in a country lane a short distance from the home.

Landry, an accomplished engineer who made his fortune in the United States oil industry after growing up in Louisiana, was sentenced at Wolverhampton Combined Court in February last year.

During the CBS interview, he blames his guilty verdict on “an ill-prepared defence” and fully intends to appeal, despite seemingly accepting he will end his days in jail.

“I’m expecting to die here. I’m resigned to it,” he says.

“And it’s not the end of my life, this is just a different life.

"I have done a lot of good things, beneficial things, donating my time to various causes, unselfishly.

“And no one remembers that, all they remember is that I murdered my wife.

“I don't expect you to see that I’m not a murderer.”

Although he admits being sorry for what happened, he says he would not change what he did in the same circumstances: “I think I would have reacted the same way. Yes, I would.”

Landry still says he was provoked by his wife, who was having an affair at the time, and that during previous rows she had resorted to “punching and slapping and kicking and biting”.

Landry still claims on the fateful night, he snapped.

“It wasn’t just an instantaneous thing, I just all of a sudden got p****d off.

“I had been pushed and pushed and pushed by my wife for six months. And I had been humiliated non-stop.”

He says Lucy called him a sexual pervert and flaunted her affair.

“And there's some point that you just decide you’ve had enough,” says Landry.

“And I reached that point where I just had enough.”

Landry says on the night of the murder, they fought over her mobile phone, and she told him she hated him.

In the kitchen he maintains his wife shoved him, so he flung the first thing to hand – “a granite rolling pin, I hit her in the head with it.

“She screamed, and took off running.”

Landry went after her, and in the trial, the jury heard Mrs Landry had been stabbed 23 times.

Asked how he felt about his wife now, Landry says: “I love her, I love her to death.”