Tammy Cohen - Deadly Divorces. Ten True Stories of Marriages that Ended in Murder

S ome days Rena Salmon could not believe her luck. Some days she would gaze around her 400,000 home in the affluent Berkshire village of Great Shefford, listening to her son and daughter laughing with their school friends in a different part of the house, and shed wonder yet again how on earth shed managed to end up there.

Great Shefford is prime commuter belt territory; near to Reading and Newbury, and not too far from London itself. Its picturesque cottages, good schools and country air make it a magnet for stockbrokers, solicitors and anyone else who dreams of a rural-style life with all city amenities close by oh, and who can afford the hefty price-tag that property there commands. Luckily money wasnt a problem for Rena because her husband Paul made a fortune as an IT consultant. Rena got to swan around in a fancy Merc and to take holidays at their seaside home in Dorset with its own private section of beach. Not bad for a woman whod run away from home at the age of 13 and had spent most of her teenage years in Care. No wonder she sometimes had to give herself a good hard pinch to make sure this was actually real.

Born in Birmingham on 20 February 1960, Rena Beyum Uddin had not had the easiest of starts. Depending on who you talked to, youd get a slightly different version of what childhood was like in the Uddin household, but lets just say none of the accounts would put you in mind of the Waltons. The story Rena and her sister Sabeya told was that their mother had been a prostitute; first in Birmingham and then Burnley. Growing up, they said, the house had been full of dirty old men, all clients of their mothers. Both Rena and Sabeya had dark skin, apparently a legacy of their different Asian fathers. This physical characteristic was a constant source of irritation to their mother, claimed the women, and shed regularly scrub them roughly with a mixture of bleach and scouring powder to lighten their skin and referred to them as black bastards.

Imagine what such a childhood would do to an impressionable young girl. Consider the daily beatings your ego and sense of self would sustain. Think how youd shrivel inside and start hating your reflection in the mirror; imagine how youd come to believe that no one would ever love you, that youd never be worthy of respect or affection. Picture how little hope youd hold out of ever getting away from that situation, of ever being allowed anything better.

Living in a series of foster homes and childrens homes from the age of 13 hadnt done much either for Renas fragile self-esteem. What message does that background send to a girl whose faith in people is already so tarnished? That nothing is permanent, what appears to be security can be whisked away at a moments notice, that its a cruel world and you have to hang onto whats yours because theres always someone else behind you waiting to snatch it away, leaving you with nothing.

But Renas luck or rather the lack of it changed when she joined the Army. Here finally was her opportunity to belong to a group; almost a family that would always take care of her in the way her real family had failed to do. After so many years of feeling like she didnt have the right clothes, of always sensing she was second best, Rena was proud to put on smart uniform everyday, finally to fit in.

She trained as a Data Telecoms Operator and in 1980 was posted to Northern Ireland. For many servicemen and women being sent to a place where hostility and tension seemed to hang heavy in the grey skies overhead would have constituted a nightmare posting, but for Rena it was the start of a dream life because it was here that she first met Paul Salmon. Paul was a technician with the Royal Signals. With his clear, sparkling eyes, curly brown hair and easy charm, he was the kind of man Rena Salmon had never imagined might actually be interested in her. But over time, the two struck up a friendship that deepened into romance.

There was only one slight blot on the pages of this fairy tale Paul was already married. However, he wasnt going to let a little thing like that get in the way of a blossoming love affair. He set about getting divorced and in 1985 he and Rena tied the knot. For the girl whod always felt unloved and unwanted; whod been brought up to think she wasnt good enough, it was a day she thought shed never see. At last she had found someone who loved her for who she was and didnt want to change her. After taking her vows, she silently added a couple of her own: that she would love this man forever and she would never let anything come between them.