Beauty salon killer's appeal is rejected (From Sutton Guardian)

Beauty salon killer's appeal is rejected

7:31am Friday 18th May 2007

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A woman who murdered her estranged husband's pregnant girlfriend in a Chiswick beauty salon has had her appeal rejected.

Rena Salmon was yesterday told by a High Court judge she must spend at least 14 years in jail for shooting 36-year-old Lorna Stewart at her beauty salon in Chiswick High Road in September 2002.

The mum-of-two, who was convicted at the Old Bailey in May 2003 and sentenced to life after pleading guilty to murder, said she had gone to the salon to commit suicide and pulled the trigger in a trance-like state.

Salmon, a former service woman, discovered her husband Paul was having an affair with Mrs Stewart in January 2002.

On the day of the murder Salmon drove the 60 miles from her Berkshire home to the west London beauty salon with her husband's loaded shotgun.

The court heard how Mrs Stewart calmly asked Salmon if she had come to shoot her while staring into the barrels of the gun.

Salmon said she had and then shot Mrs Stewart, who was two months pregnant, twice, once in the chest and again in the stomach.

During Salmon's trial it was submitted she had suffered a mental disorder or disability which reduced the degree of her responsibility.

However High Court judge Mrs Justice Rafferty said she believed the elements of preparation and premeditation outweighed other arguments.

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