A FRIEND of a woman shot dead by Stephen Fulton has said the five-years the senior Orangeman spent behind bars for killing her “wasn’t long enough”.
Donna McKay was a close friend of Corien Fulton when she was shot in the head by the former soldier in the bedroom of their Cookstown home in 1999.
Stephen Fulton, who was serving in the Royal Irish Rangers (RIR) at the time, spent five years in prison after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of his wife in 2000.
“It wasn’t long enough. He was fit to walk free, Corien is gone,” she told the Sunday Life newspaper.
Read More: Convicted killer Stephen Fulton fronted Orange Order commemoration for murder victims
Last week it emerged that the 77-year-old had been appointed worshipful district master of Cookstown District LOL No 3, prompting widespread criticism.
The Orange Order announced on Wednesday that Fulton had stepped down from the post, but in a later statement, a spokesperson confirmed he remained a member of the institution.
More than two decades on, Donna McKay said she is still haunted by the expression on Corien Fulton’s face in her coffin.
“Corien always had this smile, but she looked really scared. It was nearly as if her face had stayed exactly as it was when she saw the gun.”
The two women met when they worked together at a shirt factory in Magherafelt when aged in their twenties.
Ms McKay disclosed how she visited the bedroom where her friend was killed after a request from her family in England to remove Corien's belongings.
“They had cut the piece of carpet out where she had bled. There was a hole in the wall where the bullet had gone right through her and they had removed the bedding off the bed.
“There was stuff we took to a friend’s house and burnt it. It was awful. I would never want to do that again.”
On June 4 1999, Fulton used his British Army-issued gun to shoot his wife at their Old Rectory Heights home in Cookstown.
Fulton had rushed home to Cookstown from his training camp in England, when his wife, 20 years his junior, told him she was considering leaving him.
When sentencing Fulton, the judge said he accepted the soldier had been “substantially impaired” by a classifiable mental disorder after Corien Fulton removed her wedding ring in the bedroom.
The manslaughter verdict and sentencing remarks were criticised at the time by Monica McWilliams of the Women's Coalition.
Recalling the sentence imposed on Fulton, Donna McKay said: “Corien didn’t deserve that and nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies it.”