A wealthy IT director who was due to stand trial charged with stabbing his estranged wife and her new lover has been found dead in prison.
Peter Mason, 58, was arrested after wife Deborah and her new partner Michael Longden were seriously injured outside their shared home.
Mum-of-two Deborah suffered multiple stab wounds and her boyfriend was stabbed seven times in the horror attack on July 1 last year.
Yesterday it emerged Mason, who earned £200,000-a-year as an account director for Hewlett Packard, was found dead in his cell at HMP Gloucester on Saturday night.
The Prison Service confirmed his death was now being investigated by the prisons ombudsman.
It was not clear whether Mason had taken his own life.
He was due to stand trial in April after being charged with two counts of attempted murder.
At an earlier hearing, Hereford Magistrates Court heard how the Mason’s marriage ended last January when Deborah – along with the couple’s two children – left their £500,000 home in Newark, Notts., to live with Mr Longden in Ledbury, Herefordshire.
It is believed the lovers – who formerly dated at sixth form college – got in touch via social networking website Friends Reunited and Facebook.
Mason was accused of flying into a rage when he met his estranged wife in a pub to discuss financial arrangements and the sale of their house.
After she left the pub, it was alleged that he stormed round to the cottage where Deborah shared with Mr Longden and stabbed them both multiple times.
Deborah, who was married to Mason for 10 years, was airlifted from the incident to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham along with Mr Longden.
Both have made a full recovery.
