Lt Cmdr Neil Rutherford, DSC, (15 May 1922 – 24 September 1976) 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

Naval service

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.

Death

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 (52); Simcox's daughter, Lorna (24) and her husband, Alistair McIntyre (34); and a former merchant seaman who had become an antique dealer and resident of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Johnny Gore Green (55). 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."