McGladdery cleans his trail….

He returned to the Damolly Road, retrieved the bicycle and rode it to a field a half a kilometre along that road near its junction with the Belfast Road. There he abandoned it just inside a field (he didn’t dare allow the stolen bike to be found closer than that to his own home) and made his way home – barefoot- he had lost his own shoes in the melee – to wash the evidence off himself.

There he stripped and packed his bloodied wear for later disposal. When he could, he weighted these items down in a slurry tank some hundreds of metres from his own home.

Early the next morning McGladdery was up and about exceptionally early and he was seen taking water into his house.

When he was questioned and then physically examined later that Saturday evening by the police doctor – who took forensic samples – he was scrubbed exceptionally clean and his skin was a reddish colour as if ‘it had been scrubbed raw’.

McGladdery attempted to explain the scratch marks on his face by claiming that a chest-expander he was using slipped and struck him.

….. more McGladdery murder to come …..