MURDER PLOT WIFE IS JAILED FOR FIVE YEARS
A BATTERED wife who hatched a £10,000 plot to have her millionaire husband murdered by a hitman has been jailed for five years.Kim Fowler, aged 41, snapped after a violent 18-month marriage in which her heavy-drinking husband broke her hand.
Former model Fowler contacted a private investigator and asked him to arrange for husband Philip, 47, to die in an accident while in Jersey, said Richard Latham QC, prosecuting.
She and Patrick Morgan, her husband's best man at his previous wedding, handed over £2,000 on account at a secret meeting in a hotel.
But private eye Gordon Bucher contacted police who set up Operation Magnum to trap the pair.
Fowler, a beautician, was arrested minutes after an undercover officer called George, posing as the hitman, phoned to say he had carried out the killing.
Police found the £8,000 balance at Morgan's home under a sink.
Fowler, of Bickley Fold, Kingsland, Herefordshire, and Morgan, a 53-year-old divorced electrician, of Bye Street, Ledbury, admitted soliciting murder.
Morgan was jailed for four years yesterday.
Mr Latham told Worcester Crown Court that Fowler, a company secretary in her husband's clothing business in Hereford, stood to inherit their £300,000 house, other property, land and substantial shares after her husband's death.
Mr Fowler, who drew £150,000 a year from the business, met her in September 1996 after his first wife divorced him and his second died of cancer.
Kim's first husband Richard Sparks hanged himself a year after she married Mr Fowler in May 1998.
Mr Fowler needed treatment to dry out and his bizarre behaviour included bluffing his way into the SAS garrison in Hereford with a pistol and ammunition.
After a row at Paddington Station in November last year, Fowler devised her plan.
Mr Latham said: "The turbulent and volatile domestic situation had reached breaking point.
She decided to hire an assassin to murder her husband.
She confided in Morgan." Mr Latham said Fowler also blamed the intended victim for her first husband's suicide.
She planned to use £10,000 set aside to pay a bodyguard to protect her from her husband, to pay the killer.
She refused to tell police about the murder plot but Morgan insisted that Mr Fowler was a possessive man and he felt sorry for her.
Martin Wilson QC, for Fowler, said: "She felt she was trapped and had no other way out." He said there was no suggestion she cold-bloodedly planned his death for his money.
Richard Wakerley QC, for Morgan, said he had acted passively.
Fowler had been very persuasive.
Judge Michael Mott told Fowler she had displayed "considerable persistence and determination" in the plot.
But he said she had suffered an extremely unhappy marriage with a great deal of violence.
The judge called Morgan a weak man.
"GREEDY" Kim Fowler stood to gain a six-figure inheritance if the plot to kill her husband came off.
She roped in her husband's best man Patrick Morgan to help dream up the killing, only foiled by a massive undercover police operation.
Raven-haired Fowler and 53-year-old Morgan - who had a "close friendship" - offered private detective Gordon Bucher £10,000 to have him killed.
But ex-Army officer Mr Bucher shopped the pair to police, who then launched Operation Magnum, fronted by an undercover detective known as "George".
Det Insp Dave Morgan said the pair arranged a meeting with Mr Bucher in the Chase Hotel in Ross-on-Wye on Saturday, November 27.
The call followed 18 months of domestic violence allegations, investigated and dismissed by police.
"Essentially, Kim Fowler began stating difficulties in her marriage, going on to say she had domestic problems," he said.
"She then asked Mr Bucher words to the effect that 'I want to get rid of him, I want to kill him'." Two days later, another meeting was arranged at Morgan's house.
"It became obvious that the couple were intent on following through the initial request," said Det Insp Morgan.
"The sum of £10,000 was mentioned.
Gordon Bucher became convinced of the seriousness of this matter and came to West Mercia police." Twenty-five officers were involved in Operation Magnum - so called after Magnum PI - their numbers dropping to nine by the end of the swoop.
Undercover detective 'George' held a series of meetings with Morgan and Fowler at the Queens Hotel in Cheltenham and the Chase Hotel in Ross.
"Kim Fowler was very keen that the intended death was made to look like an accident," DI Morgan said.
"Two possible deaths were considered; firstly a car accident and secondly a fall off a cliff.
"The only stipulation was that the death shouldn't take place near the home address.
The Channel Islands were suggested - Mr Fowler was on business there - which would leave the defendants with a concrete alibi." At this stage, Fowler gave "George" £2,000.
After her arrest, police recovered the remaining £8,000.
On Saturday, December 11, 'George' contacted Fowler and told her the murder had been carried out.
Calmly, she asked him how her husband had died, but 'George' refused to tell her.
Shortly after the phone call, both she and Morgan were arrested.
But although the electrician admitted his part in the plot, Fowler persistently refused to comment.
Both admitted soliciting to murder at Worcester Crown Court on Monday, May 2.
An alternative charge of conspiracy to murder was dropped.
"We consider that this was a cold, calculating plot," DI Morgan said.
"It was not a spontaneous act, it was well thought-out and planned.
"And the fact that it was to be made to look like an accident leaves us in no doubt that greed was the main motivator.
"As the prospective widow, she would have been one of the main benefactors in the will and would have been a wealthy woman.
I think we can say it would have been a six-figure sum" He admitted Morgan's involvement remained a mystery.
"It is fair to say that he was the junior partner in all this," DI Morgan said.
Asked if she wanted him dead CONVERSATIONS between "George" and Fowler formed vital evidence in the case, DI Morgan said.
During a series of meetings, the undercover officer asked her specifically if she wanted her husband killed.
"When you say you want the end, what do you mean?" 'George' asked Fowler.
"Do you want him killing ...
is that what you are saying?" Fowler replied she wanted "an accident".
"But a permanent accident?" he asked her.
"Yes," she said.
"But at the end of the day it won't be an accident," he said.
"It will be murder." "OK, all right," Fowler replied.
"You've got to live with that," 'George' told her.
"Yes, murder," she said.
DI Morgan refused to reveal the identity of "George", declining to give even his age.
"I would like to thank the dedication and hard work of all the officers, particularly 'George'," he said.
"Without his evidence, we would not have secured such an early guilty plea." Operation Magnum gathered 55 witnesses and 90 exhibits for use during the trial.
Begged for her problem to be solved "CALCULATING" Kim Fowler begged private investigator Gordon Bucher to solve her marital problems, he said.
Fowler first contacted him on his mobile phone.
"She said she wanted to meet me to discuss a matrimonial problem," said the softly-spoken Scot.
"She indicated that she would not meet me in Hereford because she was too well-known." Fowler, however, became agitated as she revealed the sinister plot.
"She was melodramatic," he added.
"Throughout the whole thing, she took long breaths to come out with certain points.
"She went into some depth about her relationship with her husband.
I was shocked at what they asked me to do."
