Bible John

Bible John is the moniker given to an unidentified serial killer who is believed to have murdered three young women in Glasgow, Scotland, between 1968 and 1969.

The victims of Bible John were all brunettes between the ages of 25 and 31, all of whom met their murderer at the Barrowland Ballroom, a dance hall and music venue in the city. The perpetrator has never been identified and the case remains unsolved and one of the most extensive manhunts in Scottish criminal history. The case was the first time in Scotland in which the Crown Office authorised publication of a composite drawing of a person suspected of murder.

This unidentified serial killer became known as "Bible John" due to his having repeatedly quoted from the Bible and to have condemned adultery while in the company of his final victim. The known movements and modus operandi of the convicted serial killer and rapist Peter Tobin gave rise to speculation that he might be Bible John, after his conviction for three murders in the late 2000s, but police later eliminated him as a suspect.

First murders Patricia Docker

On 23 February 1968, the naked body of a 25-year-old auxiliary nurse named Patricia Docker was discovered in the doorway of a lock-up garage in the alleyway behind 27 Carmichael Place in the Battlefield district. The location of her body was a few streets away from her home in Langside Place. Her body bore evidence of extensive blunt force trauma, particularly to the face and head. She had been strangled to death with a strong ligature, possibly a belt. Docker's handbag, watch, clothes and jewellery (other than her wedding ring) were missing from the crime scene; her shoes were recovered at the scene. Her clothing was never found,

A postmortem conducted by Gilbert Forbes at the University of Glasgow Medical School confirmed that the cause of death had been strangulation, and that Docker's body bore no clear evidence of sexual assault. On the night of her murder, her parents had been under the impression she would spend the evening dancing at the Majestic Ballroom on Hope Street, although for unknown reasons, she is believed to have chosen to spend the majority of the evening at the Barrowland Ballroom, probably because of the 'Over-25s' night which it hosted each Thursday. When Docker failed to return home that evening, her parents assumed she had spent the night with a friend.

Investigators theorised Docker may have been killed elsewhere and her body discarded at the location of her discovery. MacDonald was a regular attendee of the Barrowland and, according to family custom, her sister, Margaret O'Brien, took care of her three children in her absence. As midnight approached, she was seen by several people in the company of a young, well-dressed and well-spoken man of slim build, aged between 25 and 35 and between and in height. The man had short hair variously described by witnesses as being fair, ginger, or dark brown with fair streaks. Like Docker, MacDonald had been menstruating at the time of her death, although unlike Docker, MacDonald's body was discovered fully clothed.

Suspect The suspect was described by Puttock's sister Jean Langford as being a tall, slim and well-dressed young man wearing a brown and well-cut Reid and Taylor brand suit, with reddish, sandy or fair hair rounded neatly at the back. His wristwatch had a military-style broad leather strap, and, unusually, he was wearing unfashionable leather half-boots. He was aged between 25 and 30, approximately to in height, and had blue-grey eyes. She noticed that two of his front top teeth overlapped, and that one of his teeth at the back right-hand side of his mouth was missing. He also commented to the women, "I don't drink at Hogmanay; I pray", although he said that he was familiar with several drinking premises in the Yoker district. He said he was an only child but contradicted this soon after by saying he had a sister, adding that alcohol was not allowed in his home and that when his sister came home drunk once she was refused entry to the house. Langford was of the impression that the man regretted mentioning his sister and tried to redirect the conversation to foster homes and foster children. He revealed that he knew the fares, and possibly the times, for both the buses and the Blue Train services north of the River Clyde. As the taxi travelled along the Kingsway the man said he recognised the high-rise flats and said something about his father or another relative having worked there, and that a children's home had once been there. Langford said that the man appeared to be evasive when asked some questions. Hannah was unfamiliar with the route and made some wrong turns during the last part of the journey, causing Puttock to become frustrated and ask him to stop on Earl Street. It was initially believed that the man may have used the nearby Govan ferry to cross the River Clyde to the south of the city, but the ferrymen working that night could not remember such an individual.

Link to series The murder of Helen Puttock held remarkable similarities to the two previous murders, further raising suspicions that all three murders had been committed by the same person. Each of the victims had been the mother of at least one child and had met her murderer at the Barrowland Ballroom. The handbag of each woman was missing. Each victim had been strangled to death, and at least two of these women had been raped prior to their murders. Each of the three women had been escorted home by her killer and murdered within yards of her door. Additionally, all had been menstruating at the time of death

"It is quite incredible that this man has eluded us. I am positive this man comes from Glasgow or nearby. He is between 25 and 30, between and tall, has light red hair, good features, blue-grey eyes, and a smart modern appearance. I do not think he is a very religious man, but just has a normal intelligent working knowledge of the Bible which he likes to air ... there must be many people who know someone who looks like this artist's impression." — Detective Superintendent Joe Beattie, describing the prime suspect in the Bible John murders (1972). Detective Superintendent Joe Beattie asked the public to study this composite drawing closely, should it resemble anyone they knew. Due to the suspect's hair being unfashionably short for the era, over 450 hairdressers in and around Glasgow were shown the updated drawing of the suspect, and all dentists in and around the city were asked to examine their records to determine whether they held records of a male patient with overlapping incisors and a missing tooth in the upper right jaw. Both lines of inquiry proved fruitless. The police also produced an artist's impression portrait, created by Lennox Patterson, Registrar of the Glasgow School of Art, based on the recollections of Puttock's sister. In June 1970, police employed the photofit system in an attempt to produce a better likeness of the suspect. This was the first instance this method of identifying a murder suspect was used in Scotland. Ultimately, more than 5,000 potential suspects were questioned in the first year of the inquiry alone, and Jean Langford was required to attend over 300 identity parades, but she was adamant none of those required to participate in these identity parades had been the man with whom she had last seen her sister, and all were cleared of any involvement.

Despite the extensive manhunt, no further developments arose and the investigation into the three murders gradually became cold, with many officers assigned to the case believing that the perpetrator had either died, been jailed for an unrelated offence, had been incarcerated at a mental hospital, or that senior police officers had known his actual identity but had been unable to prove he had committed the murders. Others speculated that he may have simply moved away from the Glasgow district, or murdered whenever in the vicinity; this possibility prompted police to circulate multiple copies of the composite drawing at all British Army, Navy, and Air Force bases in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the Middle and Far East; this line of inquiry failed to produce any significant leads.

Potential suspects John Edgar/"John White" Les Brown, who worked on the Bible John case as a junior detective, claimed in 2005 that he had identified a likely suspect at the time but that he was dismissed simply because he did not have notably overlapping front teeth. The man had been found arguing with a young woman in the Barrowland, and Brown said that he closely resembled the facial composite of Bible John. The man subsequently supplied police with a false name and address before revealing his true name and address in the Gorbals. Subsequently, police questioned Henderson and eliminated him as a suspect. Langford also told police that Henderson did not look like the killer.

Hannah Martin rapist In the years following the Bible John murders, several women came forward to claim that they had been sexually assaulted after an evening at the Barrowland. One of these women, Hannah Martin, claimed that she had been assaulted and raped by Bible John and had subsequently given birth to his child in January 1970; a daughter she initially named Isobel.

In April 1969, Martin had left the Barrowland in the company of a tall man with whom she then had sex, and then accepted his offer of a lift home. However, during the drive, the man's sexual demeanour became more aggressive, and Martin, drunk and terrified she may be attacked, vomited in the man's car. He then bundled her out of the car and drove off, leaving her standing on the pavement. One author, David Leslie, has claimed that Martin's daughter could be the one indubitable link to the identity of Bible John.

John Irvine McInnes In 1996, Strathclyde Police exhumed the body of John Irvine McInnes from a graveyard in Stonehouse, South Lanarkshire. McInnes, who had served in the Scots Guards, had died by suicide in 1980 at the age of 41, by severing the brachial artery in his upper arm. He was an early suspect in the Bible John investigation and cousin to a senior police officer. Moreover, a business card for Moylan's furniture store (where McInnes worked) was found at the scene of Puttock's murder. However, Jean Langford had not picked him out in numerous identity parades (although McInnes was allegedly not included in the original identity parades), and she continued to insist in 1996 that McInnes was not Bible John. (According to a contemporary psychiatrist's report, the unusual method of suicide chosen by McInnes was akin to psychopathy, leading to suggestions McInnes may have opted to take his own life in search of the "ultimate thrill".) existed to link McInnes with the murder of Helen Puttock. The Crown officially cleared McInnes of any involvement in the Bible John murders in July 1996.

Strathclyde Police and the McInnes family pathologist confirmed in 2005 that further advancements in DNA testing had now enabled a match between McInnes's DNA and the killer's to be fully disproven.

Peter Tobin Some have speculated that the convicted serial killer Peter Tobin may have been Bible John. He had lived in Shettleston in Glasgow in the late 1960s; he then relocated to England in August 1969 (before the final two murders committed by Bible John) after marrying his first wife, whom he had met at the Barrowland Ballroom in 1968. (A former detective named Joe Jackson, who had helped investigate the Bible John murders in the 1960s, has stated that he suspected Tobin may have been the perpetrator shortly after he was arrested for the murder of Polish student Angelika Kluk in 2006, adding: "When I saw his photograph, I thought, 'This is as near to Bible John as you are going to get.) This looks a winner.' He fitted the bill in every way, and he had connections with religion." However, one discrepancy is that Bible John displayed his victims' bodies in public places, whereas Tobin buried all his known victims.

Some contemporary visual similarities exist between Tobin when aged in his 20s and the 1969 composite drawing of Bible John, although the composite drawing showed Bible John with red hair and contemporary pictures of Tobin show he did not have this hair colour.

Operation Anagram

As a result of a police investigation named Operation Anagram, which was initiated in 2006 to trace the movements of Tobin throughout the decades and to determine his potential culpability in any other crimes, a woman informed investigators she had been raped by Tobin after she had met him at the Barrowland Ballroom in 1968, shortly after the first of the murders believed to have been committed by Bible John. However, Operation Anagram found no other evidence to support the theory that Tobin was Bible John. Tobin's wife testified the pair were still on their honeymoon in Brighton at the time of the murder of the second victim, and she insists he was with her at the time. She has strongly criticised the theory that Tobin is Bible John. Tobin was in police custody regarding an unrelated crime when another of the killings occurred. He was also still living in Brighton at the time of the third murder, meaning he would have had to travel without his wife's knowledge to Glasgow and back from Brighton to have committed the murder of Helen Puttock.

Tobin's DNA was checked against the semen sample for Bible John as part of Operation Anagram. The results of this analysis conclusively proved the bodily fluid did not originate from Tobin. Wilson has questioned the DNA evidence, but the police also have a record of the bite mark that was found on Helen Puttock's wrist which they can cross-check with Tobin's dental records, as had been done with John McInnes when he was exhumed and subsequently eliminated as a suspect in 1996. Tobin also had a distinctive scar under his left eye at the time, and no witnesses reported Bible John as having such a scar, and Tobin was also 5 ft 6 in, much shorter than the witness accounts of Bible John. The key witness with Bible John in the taxi, Jean Langford, also insisted that Tobin was nothing like the man.

David Swindle, the senior investigating officer in charge of Operation Anagram, has stated that there is no evidence to link Tobin to the Bible John murders, and Operation Anagram eventually discounted the theory.

In his 2010 book, The Lost British Serial Killer, the author David Wilson claimed that Peter Tobin was Bible John, but his co-writer, Paul Harrison, later recanted the claims they made in it. In 2013, Harrison published a new book, instead claiming that Bible John was a police officer. Harrison concluded: "the obnoxious little pervert that Tobin has been proven to be is not the killer referred to as Bible John".

Domestic violence theory A former crime editor for the Daily Record newspaper, Jane Hamilton, has since stated that detectives she has interviewed who had reviewed the Bible John case files in the 1980s were of the belief that two of the murders linked to Bible John were actually domestic incidents.

Patricia Docker's estranged husband Alex had been an early suspect in her murder. The two had married in 1963, but their marriage had been an unhappy one, and the issue of divorce had been raised between them more than once. The marriage further deteriorated shortly after a posting to Cyprus – where Docker is believed to have conducted at least one affair – followed by a brief move to Digby, Lincolnshire, where Alex Docker was an RAF corporal.

Contemporary police reports indicate MacDonald had visited the Barrowland for three successive nights in the week prior to her murder, and that she was "in receipt of public funds, plus maintenance from the fathers of her children".

Aftermath No further murder victims killed in Scotland or elsewhere in the United Kingdom have ever been conclusively attributed to Bible John, and the manhunt for this murderer was one of the most extensive manhunts in Scottish criminal history. The murders of the three women remain unsolved, and that the later two murders may have either been copycat killings, or the sole two committed by the same perpetrator. Criticism has also been levelled against the police for potentially hampering their own investigation by prematurely jumping to the conclusion that all three murders had been committed by the same person.

In 2004, police announced their intentions to genetically test several men in a further attempt to identify the perpetrator, with all concerned being requested to submit blood samples. This followed the previous discovery of an 80% genetic match from the semen samples retrieved from the final crime scene attributed to Bible John with a DNA sample retrieved at the site of a minor crime committed two years earlier. The sample was enough of a match to lead officers to believe that the person who committed the offence was related to the killer.

The sole witness ever to have engaged in a lengthy conversation with Bible John, Jean Langford, died in September 2010 at the age of 74. Langford had given police the description used to form the second composite drawing created of the suspect, which remains the most significant clue as to the perpetrator's physical appearance. Despite Professor Wilson's assertion that Peter Tobin may have been Bible John, when Langford discussed her sister's murderer many decades later, she dismissed this theory, stating emphatically that Tobin had not been the man she had shared a taxi with on the night of her sister's murder.

Media

Books

Television The BBC has broadcast a 30-minute documentary focusing on the murders committed by Bible John. Presented by Hugh Cochrane, this episode was screened on 18 September 1970, and concluded with a direct quote from Jeremiah, Chapter 23, Verse 24, appealing to the perpetrator to hand himself in to the police: 'Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? saith the Lord? Granada Television have broadcast a drama-documentary focusing on the murder of Helen Puttock as part of the true crime drama television series In Suspicious Circumstances. This episode, titled "Dancing With Death", was first broadcast on 23 March 1993 and focuses upon the murder of Helen Puttock. Channel Four has broadcast a 25-minute documentary upon the Bible John murders. Titled Calling Bible John, this documentary was presented by Andrew O'Hagan and was first broadcast in March 1996. The case of Bible John featured in a December 2005 episode of Unsolved. Narrated by Alex Norton, the program primarily focuses on the death of the final victim, Helen Puttock, and includes interviews with Puttock's husband George. STV has broadcast a 45-minute documentary focusing on the murders committed by Bible John. This documentary, titled In Search of Bible John, was initially broadcast in 2011, and explores the possibility that Peter Tobin may have been the perpetrator of the three murders. A two-part documentary by BBC Scotland focuses on the manhunt for Bible John. Titled The Hunt for Bible John, this episode was first broadcast by BBC Scotland in November 2021 and across the UK on BBC Two in January 2022. The programme featured contributions from George Puttock, writer Andrew O'Hagan, journalist Magnus Linklater and psychologist David Canter.

Radio/Podcast BBC Sounds have broadcast a 13-part series focusing upon the murders committed by Bible John. Presented by journalist Audrey Gillan and titled Bible John: Creation of a Serial Killer, this series was broadcast between 29 September and 7 December 2022.