Murders are something that are fairly infrequent in the local area (fortunately), however, there have been several high profile cases...and this is one from 1976 that I have always found fascinating.......I've often wondered what made Neil Rutherford snap that fateful evening.
"The night five died in quiet hotel"
A Penmaenmawr man stumbled upon the shooting that left five people dead at the Red Gables hotel on Friday 24th September 1976.
Just before 6pm, Mr. Will Williams, 41, arrived home to find a woman waving her arms in the road. Near her a man lay bleeding. Mr. Williams of St. Johns Park ran over to help the man. Then he smelled smoke and found the hotel was on fire. He told neighbours to phone the emergency services.
“I ran over and took the man's pulse. It was very weak. He had blood all over his stomach and on his nose. I sent for blankets to keep him warm...He didn't say anything to me and then his pulse stopped. The woman who found him said that he had told her he had been shot. She was in a right state”.
Then Mr. Williams smelled smoke and he and other neighbours ran through the gardens.
“The doors were closed so we hammered on them and shouted 'anybody there?'. There was no answer and I didn't want to open the doors because I have seen what draught does to a fire.”
Meanwhile, the fire service had been called by a woman in St. John's Park and a doctor who arrived at the scene pronounced the man dead.
It was getting dark and raining when firemen fighting the blaze found two men and two women dead inside the hotel. All had gunshot injuries.
Those who died in the incident were hotel owner, Mrs Linda Simcox (59), her daughter and son-in-law Lorna(24) and Alistair McIntyre(33), a long-standing family friend, Mr. John Gore Green (55), of Bay City, Texas, and the hotel's former gardener, Mr. Neil Rutherford (54).
Mr. Green was found in a downstairs kitchen and Mrs. McIntyre was in an upstairs bedroom. Mrs Simcox and Mr. Rutherford were lying dead in the lounge. Beside them was a automatic pistol. Detectives are working on the theory that Mr. Rutherford shot the four people before turning the gun on himself.
Detectives, fire officers and forensic scientists were at the hotel early on Saturday looking for clues to help them solve the mystery. Several items, including handbags and notebooks, were removed for examination. The hotel interior was badly damaged by the fire and police believe the fire was started in two separate parts of the building.
The man found dying in the road was identified as Mr. McIntyre. He is believed to have escaped from the hotel and crawled through the gardens to the road to call for help. He tore off his pullover as he made his way through the garden.
Lorna and Alistair McIntyre were living at the hotel and Mr Gore Green was the only guest.
Curious villagers who went to the scene on Saturday said the whole town had been shocked. Several spoke of Mr. Rutherford, known locally as 'the commander'. He was a short, stocky middle aged man, that had been working at the hotel as a gardener and handyman for eighteen months. They had heard that Mr. Rutherford had left the hotel a fortnight ago but he was seen in Penmaenmawr on Friday afternoon before the deaths.
He was known in most of the pubs in Penmaenmawr, his 'local' was the Alexandra, where he went about four times a week. The landlord, Elwyn Frogatt, said the commander was a quiet man who always drank alone.
“He was a proud gardener and used to bring us tomatoes. I never had any trouble with him. He used to come in quiet times and drink halves of Guinness.”
The landlord of the Bron Eyri hotel, Brian Jones, said that the commander struck him as a very fidgety man.
“He would never sit down. He used to pace up and down the room and look out of the window. He would just have half a pint of Guinness and then go. He never stayed longer than half an hour. When we heard about all this on Friday night, no-one could believe it”.
The commander was in the Mountain View hotel on Friday afternoon, shortly before the murders. The landlord, Mr E. Kemish, said that he seemed his normal self.
“He was on his own and pacing up and down like he normally did. He used to come in about once a week for a drink. On Friday he had a glass of Guinness and a couple of gins.
Regulars at the pubs said the commander was always on his own and rarely struck up a conversation.
Neil Rutherford was the son of Richard Perry Rutherford, a shipbuilder, and was born on the 15th May 1922 . He was married on the 7th August 1948 to Joan Margery Colville-Hyde (born 05.05.1923) but the marriage was dissolved on the 2nd May 1972. They had one daughter. He had a distinguished record of service in the Navy, including two DSCs. He retired from the Navy in 1958, following a stint at the Underwater Weapons Material Department (Bath) . He had been working at the Red Gables hotel since April 1975 as a gardener and general handyman.
© North Wales Weekly News 1976
The Red Gables Hotel reopened after the murders, but the bypassing of the town by the A55 led to its closure about 10 years ago. It remains derelict today:
