Widow plans to marry double killer

Press, 7 May 1983, Page 11

Widow plans to marry double killer

NZPA Belfast The widow of an Ulster policeman shot dead by the I.R.A. is planning to mairy a double killer serving a life sentence. Mrs Florence Cobb, aged 42, of Hillsborough, County Down, says that she is prepared to wait until her fiance, Kenny McClinton, aged 36, is freed from Ulster’s Maze prison. She said yesterday: “As far as the prison authorities are concerned his release date is 1997. It seems a very long time away, but I believe the Lord can open the prison doors a long time before that.” Mrs Cobb’s husband Rory, an R.U.C. inspector, was shot dead at security gates in Lurgan, County Armagh, six years ago. McClinton, once a Belfast U.D.A. man, who is serving a life sentence with a re-

commendation of 20 years minimum for the two murders, first met Mrs Cobb two years ago. They had been corresponding with each other since Mrs Cobb, a Born Again Christian, sent a letter to another prisoner, the man who killed her husband, telling him that she forgave him. McClinton, also a Bom Again Christian, wrote to her after hearing about it. Mrs Cobb said: “The Lord has forgiven Ken. I am not interested in the past.” McClinton was described as a “ruthless assassin” when he was jailed for the murders of Daniel Carville, a Catholic, shot dead behind the wheel of his car on St Patrick’s Day, 1977, and a bus driver, Harry Bradshaw, shot and killed during a Loyalist strike three months later.