Neil Rutherford

Lt Cmdr Neil Rutherford, DSC, was a British Royal Navy commander and mass murderer. He saw active service in the Second World War and the Korean War. In 1958 he served with the Underwater Weapons Material Dept. He committed suicide in Penmaenmawr, Wales, after killing four people at a hotel and setting it on fire.

Naval career

Midshipman 1 January 1940
Sub Lieutenant 1 November 1941
Lieutenant 1 June 1943
Lieutenant Commander 1 June 1951
DSC 10 July 1945 6 war patrols
DSC 29 June 1951 Korea

Naval service

Education: RN College
1 January 1940 – January HMS Glasgow
January 1941 – May 1941 HMS Hero
May 1941 – July 1941 HMS Valiant
July 1941? – September 1941? passage home SS Empress of Asia
September 1941 – March 1942 Sub-Lieutenant's courses
March 1942 – May 1942 submarine training course
20 May 1942 – February 1943 HMS Tuna which was involved in Operation Frankton
February 1943 – July 1943 HMS P556
5 July 1943 – January 1946 First Lieutenant HMS Spiteful patrolling the Pacific sinking Japanese shipping.
8 February 1946 – August 1946 HMS Dolphin a shore-establishment depot for submarines. Part of Submarine Reserve Group K.
August 1946 – September 1946 HMS Stygian
October 1946 – November 1946 HMS Ranee
January 1947 – January 1948 specialist Torpedo & Anti-Submarine course HMS Vernon
January 1948 – September 1949 HMS Defiance a torpedo school.
September 1949 – November 1949 passage to Far East SS Devonshire
November 1949 – April 1952? HMS Black Swan which was involved in the Yangtze Incident on 20 April 1949
30 April 1952 – staff TAS, HMS Montclare a Submarine Depot Ship and based at Rothesay with the 3rd Submarine flotilla.
May 1953 – 5 July 1954 Commander-in-Chief, The Nore
5 July 1954 – staff, Flag Officer Commanding Reserve Fleet HMS Cleopatra
Underwater Weapons Material Department, Admiralty HMS President

Family life

Commander Rutherford retired from the navy 5 January 1959. He was son of Neil Perry Rutherford and after his father's death, Neil ran A. Rutherford and Co, until 1960s. By April 1975, he was working as a gardener/handyman at the Red Gables Hotel, Penmaenmawr, North Wales. Rutherford was married on 7 August 1948 to Joan Margery Colville-Hyde; they divorced 2 May 1972.

Killings and suicide

Rutherford killed four people at the Red Gables Hotel in Penmaenmawr, Wales, on 24 September 1976, set fire to the hotel and then committed suicide. Killed by gunshot wounds were the hotel owner, Linda Simcox ; Simcox's daughter, Lorna and her husband, Alistair McIntyre ; and a former merchant seaman who had become an antique dealer and resident of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Johnny Gore Green. The hotel was ablaze when the police arrived. An inquest a month later found that Rutherford had been the gardener and handyman at the hotel and concluded that the murders were made in a jealous rage after Rutherford's toward Linda Simcox who "did not reciprocate these feelings".