Appeal Follows Farmer's Killing

Police have appealed for help in their investigations into what they have now described as a violent robbery.

That motive was already being blamed for the brutal killing of a rural dairy farmer last week - Victor Stewart, 45 - who was found at his house on the Creevekeeran Road in Middletown on Wednesday

Now, the PSNI have appealed for help in tracking down the killers.

Detective Chief Inspector Richard Harkness said Mr Stewart was killed shortly after he had eaten his tea.

"It was a savage attack in the living room of his home," he said.

DCI Harkness appealed for anyone who can help their inquiry to contact police: "We would like to speak to anyone who saw Mr Stewart from Sunday of this week until his body was found on Wednesday," he said.

The earlier announcement by detectives investigating the murder revealed that the victim suffered a violent death and that he was killed on Monday 20 October.

They have said it is "imperative" they retrace his movements on the days before his death.

The senior detective also said that a link with the killing of 62-year-old widow Eileen Corrigan earlier this month in Armagh city has not been ruled out by police.

"It's one line of inquiry but there are no obvious links between the two murders," said DCI Harkness.

"These are being treated as separate murder inquiries."

The murder update comes just hours before a separate incident in which a man in his 70s was tied up during an aggravated burglary.

In the latest incident, outside Maghaberry in Co Antrim, a pensioner was dragged into a bedroom of his mobile home on Saturday by two men who tied his hands together. His home was then ransacked but it is not believed anything was stolen.

See: Farmer's Death Was Murder, Say Police