The widow of the prison officer gunned down on the M1 motorway near Lurgan, Co Armagh, earlier this month has said she cannot understand how anybody could carry such hatred that they could murder an honest and caring man.
Yvonne Black, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, whose husband David (52) was shot dead by a group styling itself “the IRA” on November 1st, made an emotional plea yesterday for anybody with information about the killers to bring it forward so that they could be convicted.
Ms Black, a cancer nurse at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry, recalled that while she was at work she learned from the PSNI that her husband had been murdered. “I just can’t understand how anybody can have so much hatred for somebody that they would want to do this,” she said.
“I stand at people’s beds and try to make every day as good as it can be because I know how precious life is. People struggle for every hour and to think that somebody could just take somebody’s life, just like that, it is just beyond my understanding.”
Ms Black spoke of how she wished she had had time to give her husband “one more hug”, to say some of the things to him that she had not said.“He was so young, he had such a life ahead and . . . that’s all just disappeared now.”
Ms Black said her husband was close to retirement and was planning to spend more time with his family including his elderly parents. She stressed that while she wanted justice, she did not want revenge.
