subject: Newrys Tragic Story - Pearl Gamble [print this page] On the morning of Saturday 28th January 1961 local man Charles Ashe was out walking his greyhounds when he came across a black shoe lying in the middle of his path just a few hundred yards beyond Ellen Vale on the Upper Damolly Road. He picked the shoe up, looked at it and then threw it to the side in a nearby hedge.
As Mr. Ashe proceed with his walk he came across other articles of clothing at the Damolly crossroads such as a silk scarf, the match of the previous black shoe and a pair of brown shoes. Just slightly further down the road he came across an abandoned bicycle in a field. Another local man, Bob Mc Cullough was repairing gates in a nearby field and the two men had a brief chat, discussing the objects and bicycle before parting company.
At about 9.30am Mr. Mc Cullough left to get a sledgehammer and on his way he came across female clothing which were blood stained and thrown all around a field. He called to the nearest house to raise the alarm. This house was the home of Mrs. Margaret Gamble, who was extremely worried as her daughter Pearl had not returned home from a dance the night before. Mr. Mc Cullough, Mrs Gamble and her other daughter Eleanor went down to the nearby cross-roads and there they found Pearl's handbag, brush, coat, belt, skirt and pants. They gathered up the items and returned to telephone the police.
At 5pm that evening the body of Pearl Gamble was discovered at Weir's Rocks in Damolly. The body was naked, apart from a pair of badly-torn stockings and her body had been thrown face-downwards in bushes. Her woollen sweater, white blouse, white underskirt and bra were thrown on top of her.
By this time the police had already taken Robert Mc Gladdery in for questioning about the horrendous crime. Mc Gladdery had known Pearl since she was a child and was at the same dance the night before and they had danced together twice. Mc Gladdery put on a great act telling the police in an enraged tone "I wish I could get my hands on the boy who did this. Then you wouldn't have to deal with him".
Robert Mc Gladdery
By the time Mc Gladdery was released the police were almost certain that he had committed the crime and they now needed to find the correct evidence to charge him.
Young Pearl had worked in Foster's Store on Hill Street as a sales assistant and was well known and liked. She attended the dance in the Henry Thompson Orange Hall in Downshire Road Newry along with two friends, Rae Boyd and Evelyn Gamble arriving at 10.30pm, the night of her disappearance.
That same evening Mc Galddery had been on a pub crawl with his friend William Copeland. They had been drinking all day together beginning in Hollywood's Bar on Hill Street. They then moved on to Magee's Bar in Merchant's Quay and then on to the Royal British Legion Hall on the corner of Monaghan Street and Catherine Street and then arrived in the Memorial Hall for the dance at around 11.30pm.
Mc Gladdery and Pearl danced together twice towards the end of the evening but others remember that Pearl was very reluctant to do so. Mc Gladdery, dressed in a light blue suit, went up to the band and asked them to play the current release by Elvis, It's Now or Never. Mc Gladdery left the hall shortly after this which was before the dance ended.
After the dance, Pearl and two friends had negotiated a lift home and she was dropped at the Upper Damolly Road cross-roads close to her home. This was the last time she was seen alive.
Mc Gladdery knew where Pearl lived and he stole a bicycle from outside the Orange Hall, cycled to the Damolly area and waited in a gap in the hedge for Pearl to arrive. Pearl had been struck almost instantly after the car she got the lift in left. She was struck on the face and dragged through the gap in the hedge. From the scratches that were found on Mc Gladdery it is obvious that Pearl put up a fight. She was dragged, fighting, into the field for about 150 yards, where bloodied, flattened grass marked the spot where she lost her fight, now semi-concious.
Mc Galddery then dragged the body through the field while ripping her clothes from her and Pearl sustained a broken nose, severe bruising about the cheeks and face and cuts around her mouth. Mc Gladdery, who operated a small shoe repair business from his home had brought a file with a star-shaped end with him. This was used in a frenzied attack in which he stabbed Pearl all over her body leaving wounds as deep as two inches, and one of the wounds actually punctured her heart. He then took Pearl's scarf and strangled her. Pearl's body was then left at Weir's Rock and her clothes thrown on top of her.
Mc Gladdery then returned and collected the bicycle and drove the bike for approximately a kilometre to the junction with the Belfast Road and abandoned it in a field and made his way home, barefoot as he lost his own shoes in the struggle and washed the evidence off himself. He stripped and packed his blood stained clothes so that he could dispose of them later. These he later weighted down in a slurry tank near his home. When questioned later Mc Gladdery explained that the scratch marks on his face had been inflicted when a chest expander he had been using slipped and struck him.
When the police searched the home of Mc Gladdery they discovered a copy of the book The Long Wait by Micky Spillane which was covered with puncture holes identical to those found on Pearl's body as he had used it for target practice.
Mc Gladdery was released after questioning because the police believed that he would lead them to the missing items from the murder scene. Mc Gladdery gathered notoriety around Newry within the next week and many people began following him. The police were also following him which he was well aware of. He led the police in to the Clanrye River in the area of Damolly Village where he knew there was a shallow ford. Mc Gladdery knew the police had to follow him so he began to enjoy performing things like this on them.
On the evening on 9th February 1961 Mc Gladdery was spotted leaving Dirty Dick's Cafe on Hill Street and then proceeded to the Savoy Cinema. When he emerged from the cinema at about 11pm he returned to Dirty Dick's Cafe. When leaving here he stopped to talk to someone and then suddenly sprinted off, managing to loose the police tail. The police went straight to his home and waited for him to return which he did at 12.15. The police knew that he had been checking something in the area.
Next morning at daybreak a search party moved in to the area. In a field less than 300 yards from his home they found an old sceptic tank. In this they found a bag, weighted down by a heavy stone. Inside it they found blood-stained clothing, an over coat, vest and handkerchief and neck tie. Immediately Mc Gladdery was arrested and charged with the murder of Pearl Gamble.
When Mc Gladdery appeared at Newry Courthouse in April a large crowd had gathered. The people were outraged by this awful crime. It was arranged that Mc Gladdery would stand trial in Fermanagh as it was deemed that he would not get a fair trial in Newry as the people had already made their minds up of his guilt.
After five days of evidence in Downpatrick Courthouse an all-male jury returned the verdict of guilty. They had taken just forty minutes to reach their conclusion. Mc Gladdery was sentenced to death and the execution date was set for 7th November 1961 but was delayed when an appeal was entered.
The appeal failed and at 8am on Wednesday 20th December 1961 Robert Mc Gladdery was hung for the murder of Pearl Gamble at Crumlin Road Jail. This was the last time that anyone in Northern Ireland was to be hung. At 8.05am when a notice declaring that the sentence of death had been carried out was posted on the gates a crowd of thirty people who had gathered to witness the event pressed forward to read the notice.
Pearl Gamble reposes in the graveyard on High Street in Newry and the remains of Robert Mc Gladdery repose at the site of the Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast.
Such is the popularity of this case that a book, Cold Blooded Murder written by Patrick Greg gives a full account of the case and local musician Justin Grant wrote a song The Ballad of Pearl Gamble only a few years ago.
