WIFE killer Patrick Gallagher Deveney features in the latest of our special series on Barlinnie: The men who were hanged and their crimes.

A total of 10 judicial executions by hanging took place at HMP Barlinnie between 1946 and 1960, replacing the gallows at Duke Street Prison. This was before the death penalty was eventually abolished in the UK in 1969. All the executions took place at 8am. The public executioners during that time were Thomas Pierrepoint, Albert Pierrepoint and Harry Allen. The remains of all executed prisoners were the property of the state. They were buried in unmarked graves within the walls of the prison. During renovations at the prison in 1997, Barlinnie's gallows cell, which was built into D-hall, was finally demolished and the remains of all the executed prisoners were exhumed for reburial elsewhere on the grounds. This is the story of Patrick Gallagher Deveny who was executed by Albert Pierrepoint on May, 29, 1952, several years after the three death penalty sentences given to John Lyon, Patrick Carraher and John Caldwell in 1946. Smith's death was two years after Paul Christopher Harris and James Robertson who were both executed in 1950. The execution came exactly six weeks after James Smith.

EXECUTIONER Albert Pierrepoint made a return trip to the city of Glasgow for another hanging just six weeks after ending the life of Dancehall killer James Smith.

There within the walls of Barlinnie he placed a noose around the neck of Patrick Gallagher Deveney, 42, a Govan labourer who killed the mother of his five children.

No members of the public turned up outside the prison to watch the pinning of the execution notice on the main door.

Only prison officials, police and press were there at a minute or two past 8am to confirm that "sentence of death was this day executed on Patrick Gallagher Deveney"

The notice was signed by six witnesses including Governor Mayo; Depute Town Clerk J F Falconer, Prison Interim Medical Officer T Poole, Roman Catholic Visiting Clergyman James Sweeney, and Magistrates John H Sherriff and Samuel Hay Gardiner.

In the enquiry following the execution, it was confirmed that everything had been carried out "in a satisfactory manner and expeditiously done".

And like that Deveney was gone. But his ending was his own doing. Aside from brutally killing his own wife in the home they shared, Deveney had left his five children orphans, without parents.

He first appeared at the High Court in Glasgow charged with killing his 37-year-old wife Jeanie Deveney, whose maiden name was Todd.

The accusation was that on February 26, 1952 in his house at Blackburn Street, Glasgow, Deveney attacked his wife, struck her on the head with a hammer or similar instrument, tied a necktie round her neck and strangled her.

Another allegation that he "previously evinced malice and ill will against her" was added to the charge of murder.

The trial lasted three days and at the closing stages, the advocate-depute Mr D M Campbell asked the jury of eight women and seven men to bring in a verdict of guilty, which they eventually did.

He said: "It is not a pleasant thing to ask and it is an equally unpleasant thing for a jury to have to do but I have my duty to do and you have yours to do as citizens, and it is in that frame of mind that we must approach this case."

As this direction was being read out to the jury, Deveney sat in the dock in a relaxed attitude with his face immobile. His right hand on the back of which was a tattooed bluebird rested lightly on his left leg.

When evidence in the case had ended before Lord Keith, the jury had heard from the defence that Deveney had a 'psychopathic personality'. He suffered from blackouts and was addicted to aspirin tablets.

The jury also heard about the unhappy history of Deveney's marriage which ended in the murder of his wife at 8pm on February 26.

Her body was only discovered after her brother and two police officers had to force entry to the house. There on the kitchen floor, the mother-of-five lay strangled still wearing her overcoat which suggests she had only just got in the door when Deveney attacked.

Deveney himself went to Greenock police station with his brother to tell them something was up with his wife. He told them she was in the house and he also produced a Yale key. Those actions were something which incriminated him more during the High Court trial.

The Depute Advocate told jurors during the trial: "We do not know exactly what happened between these two that afternoon but it it not an unreasonable inference that some sort of struggle occurred. There was blood near the sink. There was a smear of blood on the wallpaper. And the woman's body was lying between the fireplace and the bed, covered with a heap of bedclothes.

"We also know that there had been a good deal of unhappiness between Mr Deveney and her husband. We heard from her mother about their quarrelling on the previous Saturday, and of the milk bottles being thrown, and so on.

"We know that Mrs Deveney came to her mother and spend the nights of Saturday and Sunday there. We know that she went back on the Monday but that on the Tuesday morning she called again on her mother in a state of agitation and said to her mother, 'We were quarrelling again all night. He says he is going to kill me."

The Depute Advocate continued: "Later the same day she called on her friend Mrs Wilson, and she told Mrs Wilson 'He has threatened to cut me to pieces'

Those threats turned into reality, and Deveney followed through strangling his victim until her last breath. He did not even appeal against the verdict for his evil actions.

And on May 29, 1952, Deveney left this earth the same way his wife did.

Tomorrow, the reclusive pensioner affectionately known as 'Old Mick'.