I'll continue the fight for his release

The news came when she challenged him over her suspicions during a phonecall on her birthday on 19 July last year, but they later agreed to maintain a united front while they continued the campaign.

Yesterday Ms Torley, of Cambuslang, told The Scotsman: "Kenny rang on my birthday and said: 'Happy birthday'. I said: 'Is it?' .Then I said: 'You're messing with your ex aren't you.' And he said: 'No.'

"He denied it for 15 minutes, then eventually he said: 'I sort of fell in love again with Wendy.' My reaction was to laugh. I said to him: 'When were you in love with her in the first place?' Then I said: 'I know what you are up to.' He said: 'What?' I said: 'You want your son.'"

Ms Torley, who has never met Richey but was engaged to him for eight years, claimed that she had written to Wendy several times in recent years, but never received a reply.

But she says she was contacted by the mother and son, following developments in Richey's case which suggested he might be freed.

Ms Torley claimed that, in a phone call just two weeks ago, Richey said that he would be "the happiest man on earth," if they had a baby together.

She added: "He's never actually told me straight that it's over."

She also claimed that Richey told her that Sean had told him he would have to choose between his Scottish fiancée and his son.

Talking of the decision to keep the split private, she said: "He told me he didn't want me to look bad. I didn't want people to think I was that woman who had stood by him for years and been ditched. I didn't want to look like some idiot. In actual fact, I was still trying to protect him to keep the campaign going and to continue the work of all our supporters. I will continue. It's been my life for eight years."

Ms Torley has campaigned for Richey for more than a decade after first becoming aware of his story through a television documentary. But she said she would never rekindle her romantic relationship with Richey: "I was absolutely devastated when he told me he was in love with Wendy. I'd already been through it the year before when he fell in love with another woman and I just asked myself can I really live with this?"

The Scotsman

JANE BRADLEY
 
THE jilted former fiancée of Death Row Scot Kenny Richey today said his relationship with his American ex-wife would never last.

Karen Torley was speaking after Richey revealed that their long-distance relationship was over and that he had gone back to ex-wife Wendy.

The 42-year-old said she did not believe the relationship between Richey and the woman he divorced in 1986, after two years of marriage, would be long-term.

But Ms Torley, who has dedicated more than a decade of her life to Richey's fight for freedom, vowed to continue the campaign to free him.

Richey, originally from Edinburgh, broke the news in an interview from prison that his relationship with Ms Torley, who he met when she started to write to him on Death Row, had ended around a year ago - but that the pair had kept up a public facade for the sake of the campaign.

Ms Torley, who often called herself Karen Richey, said she was shocked that he had gone public on their break-up. But she said: "I'm fine. It's a decision we made quite a while ago and I am going to continue with the campaign.

"This all began with a campaign and the campaign has always been the most important thing. He is very pleased that I am still going to help him."

She added: "I don't think his future is with Wendy, although that is not really for me to say. But I still care about what happens to him and I just can't see it happening. They didn't have a long relationship and I don't see them together long-term, but if it does work out, then good luck to them. I hope he realises what he has actually done. Wendy is a very quiet person and it will be a shock to her to be thrust into the limelight like this."

The couple, who first spoke in 1996, have never touched due to rules on Death Row - and played out their whole relationship through a series of letters, 15-minute telephone calls and the occasional meeting on opposite sides of a glass partition. Earlier this month, the pair apparently rejoiced in a decision to relax the rules at the Mansfield Correctional Institution in Ohio and have the bullet-proof partition between them lowered.

Ms Torley said at the time that she was "looking forward to giving him a hug and a big sloppy kiss".

She said today: "Kenny and I are getting on fine now and still speak occasionally. The break-up was all a bit complicated, but we are still best friends. The thing had run its course, really. It is hard to keep a relationship up in these circumstances for all these years. We decided to keep it quiet for a while so that we could keep things going with the campaign."

Richey admitted in the interview that he had spurned Ms Torley, a mother-of-four from Cambusland, for his ex-wife, with whom he has a son, Sean, 20.

Wendy Richey, a civil servant now living in Minnesota, split up with Richey shortly before the fire that landed him in prison.

Richey has been on Death Row for 18 years since being convicted of killing two-year-old Cynthia Collins in an arson attack in 1986. He has always pleaded his innocence.

It was reported this morning that Richey realised he was still in love with his ex-wife when they started talking again after his son came to visit him for the first time. He said: "I never realised I loved Wendy as much as I did - I thought I hated her with a passion because for 20 years she kept my son from me. But we started talking after my son came to visit me last year and I thought, God, I love this woman."

He added: "I still love Karen, but I'm not in love with her. I wish her luck in life and I wish her the best, but I can't keep going on the way I am."

Ms Torley added that she had consulted celebrity publicist Max Clifford about the issue and he had advised the pair to keep quiet.

"Max Clifford's advice was keep our mouths shut and that's what I have done," she said.

She said she had not met anyone else since breaking up with Kenny. "I haven't found anyone special yet, but I'm sure I will soon. Since we split up, I've been busy with my children and grandchildren."

She added she did not know that Richey had decided to go public with the news of their break-up.

"We had spoken about it and we'd agreed not to tell anyone at the moment. I don't know why he did it, but in a way I'm glad - it's quite a relief, actually, so I'm not going to be too angry with him about it.

"My family have all known about it for a long time, and so have some of Kenny's supporters."

Mr Clifford said today: "I knew there were problems and I hoped they would be able to sort them out, but obviously they couldn't.

"It's a very sad situation because she has campaigned tirelessly on his behalf and I don't know where this leaves the fight for his freedom."