He was convicted of the murder of Pearl Gamble, aged 19, whom he had battered, strangled and stabbed to death on 28 January 1961 and whose body was discovered at Upper Damolly, near Newry, County Down. It transpired the murderer and victim were distant cousins. Pearl Gamble had gone to a dance at the Henry Thomson Memorial Orange Hall in Newry with three girlfriends. She had been seen dancing with her boyfriend and Robert McGladdery. [1] that crime. That is all I have to say.” Initially he was to have been hanged on November the 7th. However he appealed his conviction which was Dozens of reporters from all over the world turned up for the firing squad execution. "Most executions don't attract this kind of attention. We've become inured to them," said Mr Joe Baker of Amnesty International USA. McGladdery had spent a couple of periods in borstal training and had a record of sexual and physical abuse of young women; he also had a conviction for stabbing a man in Newry.

It was to be many months later before all the evidence came together at McGladdery’s trial. The defendant alleged that he left the dance near its end at about 1.50 am and it was evident to all that he could not have walked to Damolly cross-roads in time to intercept the victim who got a lift in a car and probably arrived there very shortly after 2 am. He alleged that he saw Pearl get into a car ‘with two boys’ but no other witness testified to seeing him there and then. We had occasionally caught furtive glimpses of another world, exciting but sleazy – a sex-driven, more dangerous world – in the pictures and columns of the Sunday newspapers our fathers read, but pretended not to, for they knew this pornographic material ought not to be placed within their children’s reach. Our angry mums disdained it too, and castigated our fathers for bringing such rags as the Sunday People and The News of The World into their homes. In his absence, Pearl finished the night in the company of another boy. She bade goodnight to him outside and joined two girl-friends who had negotiated a lift home. McGladdery’s case was the OJ Simpson trial of its day. Early on the morning of January 29 1961, a girl’s personal items were found strewn around a country crossroads, close to her home. One hundred policemen scoured the area. After 12 hours they made a grim discovery: the body of Pearl Gamble and within days Robert McGladdery was arrested. On the seventh day of the trial the jury found McGladdery guilty. When asked if he had anything to say. McGladdery faced Lord Justice Curran, stood erect with his hands joined and said: “Well my Lord, there are a lot of things I could say, but I don’t think it would make any difference now.”Robert Andrew McGladdery (18 October 1935–20 December 1961) was the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland. [1] I was single and fancy-free again, and happy to be so, though I had plans. I had set my eye on a stunningly beautiful brown-eyed girl I had spied one Saturday, conversing with her older sister who worked in our only department store, Foster-Newells. By the time the 24 year old was allowed to leave the station, the police were fairly certain they had the right man. They had to find evidence against him.

No appeal was granted and finally, just days before Christmas 1961, he was hanged in Crumlin Road gaol. The gallows have never been used since. He was put under surveillance and was discreetly seen to go to some undergrowth on 10 February 1961. The following day, the police discovered, inside a pillow case in a septic tank, an overcoat, a waistcoat and a handkerchief, all of which were heavily bloodstained. It was about 9.30 am when McCullough left what he was doing and went off for a sledgehammer to complete his task. It was then he came across the other scattered items of women’s clothing, blood-stained and spread all across a field. His heart was filled with dread.His trial caused a level of controversy rarely seen in Northern Ireland at the time. After the conviction there was a prolonged “will he, won’t he hang?” debate as many, previous convicted murderers had been granted appeals.

McGladdery was dressed in a light blue suit. He approached the band and requested that they play Elvis’s current release, ‘It’s Now or Never’. And yet…Patricia…that face looking out from the yellowed newspaper. Innocence lost in the noir world of white mischief, corruption and transgressive sex. Haunted and haunting. As the case against her alleged killer was built, a parallel case seemed to be come into existence against the 19-year-old. That she was wilful, promiscuous, consorted with older men. The sly narrative that takes hold in cases like this, that somehow the victim had brought the whole thing on herself. And the judge himself? Nine years after his daughter’s death Lance Curran went on to become Ireland’s last hanging judge. In 1961 he convicted Robert McGladdery from Newry and sentenced him to death for the murder of 19-year-old Pearl Gamble. The evidence was circumstantial and McGladdery maintained his innocence but Curran weighed in with a well-timed and cynical steer to the jury and McGladdery was hanged in Crumlin Road gaol that December. That story became Orchid Blue, the second book of an unintended trilogy. Patricia's body was found on the driveway of the Curran family home in Whiteabbey. She had been stabbed 37 times. From the start the whole thing stank to high heaven. Judge Lancelot Curran would not allow members of the family to be interrogated, nor the house to be searched. Suspicious circumstances, evasions and outright lies piled up. It would appear that Curran covered up the murder of his own daughter. It would also appear that he colluded in the conviction of an innocent man for the murder, a man who would have been hanged were it not for some collusive sleight of hand from his colleagues in the bar library.I was in town to buy The New Musical Express. My ‘pay’ went on this every week, and there was very little left over. The sum total of all this evidence points in one direction only: that McGladdery on that early morning of January 28 th foully and deliberately murdered this young girl. The taking of her clothes suggests a sexual motive and although it is not necessary for the Crown to prove motive, you may come to the conclusion that passion started this affair. I mentioned this case in a blog about the death penalty last November and here is the chance to review it on the small screen.

A British Broadcasting Corporation Northern Ireland dramatisation of the case, Last Manitoba Hanging, was broadcast on 8 September 2008. In a letter to the prison Governor, Rev Vance wrote “I wish to inform you that prior to the sentence of death being carried out upon Robert McGladdery; he accepted full responsibility for the death of Pearl Gamble. He also stated that he wished his confession to be made public.”So this time the U.S responds by freezing all of Japan's assets in the United States and this prevents Japan from purchasing oil. And right after this is followed up by Britain and the Netherlands who control the Dutch East Indies imposing oil embargoes of their own. So in one fell swoop, Japan loses 94% of its oil supply. All were for murder. There were twelve executions at Crumlin Road prison, Belfast, three at Derry and one at Armagh. (A total of seventeen men were hanged at Crumlin Road prison between 1854 & 1961).