Another Piece of Evidence Linking John McInnes to the Bible John Murders

[rjpalmer]

If there was a bite mark on Helen Puttock's wrist then the question of overlapping teeth is presumably known by the police. If the police were confident in Jean Langford's impression of BJ then presumably that is partly due to the detail of overlapping front teeth corresponding to the forensics.

This is why I brought up Templeton's apparently straight teeth.

Barnflatwyngarde rightly questions whether this should be a 'deal breaker'--witness descriptions can be mistaken and sometimes with disastrous results--but according to Detective Chief Inspector Les Brown (Glasglow Crimefighter) at least one suspect was dropped because his teeth did not overlap.

The man had been involved in at least two different altercations at the Barrowland including one with a young woman, had given a false name and address to the police (twice), and looked very much like the police sketch of the suspect--but his teeth didn't overlap and that was apparently good enough for the lead investigator to drop him like a red-hot horseshoe.

I just find it curious that a senior policeman would be that confident about a witness description. That's not usually the case, so I, too, wonder about the bite mark.

[New Waterloo]

There is a recent BBC Documentary (NOT THE PODCAST) where Beatie is questioned regarding him carry a teeth mold in his pocket. He says no but I keep them here in my drawer and then takes them out and shows them to the camera and press. For a second or two if you start stop the recording you can just about see that the teeth are indeed crossed slightly at the front. Also that there is a gap where a tooth is missing on the left side. As far as I recall he says something which would suggest these are relevant to the case. Would need to go through it again. Its PART 2 of the documentary I think. This could be very important. Will have to hear what he says again.

NW

[Darryl Kenyon]

There is a recent BBC Documentary (NOT THE PODCAST) where Beatie is questioned regarding him carry a teeth mold in his pocket. He says no but I keep them here in my drawer and then takes them out and shows them to the camera and press. For a second or two if you start stop the recording you can just about see that the teeth are indeed crossed slightly at the front. Also that there is a gap where a tooth is missing on the left side. As far as I recall he says something which would suggest these are relevant to the case. Would need to go through it again. Its PART 2 of the documentary I think. This could be very important. Will have to hear what he says again.

NW

Yes NW I saw this . Makes me think that he was quietly confident that the mould was a good likeness for the killers teeth.

But if Beatie did rule people out because of their teeth it could be a mistake akin to George Oldfield etc ruling people out of the Yorkshire ripper enquiry because they did not have a Geordie/Wearside accent. Much as Sutcliffe was ruled out when Inspector Laptew voiced his concerns about him , only to be rebuffed by his commanding officer because Sutcliffe had a local accent.

Makes you wonder

Regards Darryl

[New Waterloo]

I think that's very true Darryl. So easy to go down a route and make everything fit your own theory. I do think however that the teeth mold is very significant. I think it confirms that there was a bite mark on Helens body. I cannot see any other reason for having a mold made. If it was made from witness descriptions it clearly would not be accurate. You know a millimeter here a millimeter there cross over wrong way round.. too much crossover etc.

It does seem to be that this teeth mold was made using the bite marks as reference. There appears to be a tooth missing from the back and this 'gap' can be seen on the film clip.

It doesn't prove the bite mark was made by the murderer. But we cant keep ignoring good evidence. It appears that somebody bit her a short while before her death and the police thought this bite mark was of some significance. So the mold was made.

Are we looking at an accurate reconstruction of Bible Johns teeth.

NW

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Darryl, I am trying to pull together all the available info on the case and arrange it in a way that is logical and consistent.

The problem, as you are probably all too aware of, is that much of the available info is not properly identified with regard to its source and provenance.

Anyway, it will take me a while to do this, but with regard to where the taxi driver dropped Helen and the killer, he confirmed that he dropped them both off at Earl Street at about 1.00am.

The source I am quoting from says "The cab driver confirmed leaving the couple at an address in Earl Street at approximately 1:00 AM, with the red haired man paying the fare."
(Link to source below)

This may imply that the use of the phrase "red haired man" are the words of the taxi driver, therefore possibly confirming one important aspect of the man's appearance.
His sandy or red hair.

https://unresolved.me/bible-john

Hi Barn, you’ve probably got all of the books on the subject too but if there’s any info/quote etc that you want from any particular source let me know as I have these on Kindle:

Bible John’s Secret Daughter - David Leslie
Beyond The Tape - Dr. Maria Cassidy (she did the exhumation)
The Face Of Bible John -Steve MacGregor
Bible John On Trial - Nate Campbell
We All Go Into The Dark - Fransisco Garcia
The Lost British Serial Killer - David Wilson
Glasgow Crimefighter - Les Brown

[barnflatwyngarde]

Hi Barn, you’ve probably got all of the books on the subject too but if there’s any info/quote etc that you want from any particular source let me know as I have these on Kindle:

Bible John’s Secret Daughter - David Leslie
Beyond The Tape - Dr. Maria Cassidy (she did the exhumation)
The Face Of Bible John -Steve MacGregor
Bible John On Trial - Nate Campbell
We All Go Into The Dark - Fransisco Garcia
The Lost British Serial Killer - David Wilson
Glasgow Crimefighter - Les Brown

Thanks Herlock, that's kind of you.
I have all the books you have listed, with the exception of the Nate Campbell one.

Yesterday I had the idea of going through books written by Glasgow police officers who were active in the search for Bible John to see what they had to say about the case.
I haven't had the chance yet to pull together the info relevant they contain.

I have: The Real Taggarts - Andrew Ralston
Blood on the Streets - Robert Jeffrey
Glasgow's Hard Men - Robert Jeffrey

At first glance they don't seem to contain any striking new info, but if you want any of them just let me know.
I have also ordered the new book by Jillian Bavin-Mizzi on Amazon for £16.50.

Re the new suspect an ex colleague of mine said that according to his fellow library attendants, Templeton had one face for managers and another one for his colleagues.

Re the frustrations of this case, I posted earlier on this thread that the bite mark on Helen Puttock was on her thigh, because that's what my book source said.
Most of the reports of Helen's murder however say that the bite was on her wrist.

It's all very frustrating!

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thanks Herlock, that's kind of you.
I have all the books you have listed, with the exception of the Nate Campbell one.

Yesterday I had the idea of going through books written by Glasgow police officers who were active in the search for Bible John to see what they had to say about the case.
I haven't had the chance yet to pull together the info relevant they contain.

I have: The Real Taggarts - Andrew Ralston
Blood on the Streets - Robert Jeffrey
Glasgow's Hard Men - Robert Jeffrey

At first glance they don't seem to contain any striking new info, but if you want any of them just let me know.
I have also ordered the new book by Jillian Bavin-Mizzi on Amazon for £16.50.

Re the new suspect an ex colleague of mine said that according to his fellow library attendants, Templeton had one face for managers and another one for his colleagues.

Re the frustrations of this case, I posted earlier on this thread that the bite mark on Helen Puttock was on her thigh, because that's what my book source said.
Most of the reports of Helen's murder however say that the bite was on her wrist.

It's all very frustrating!

Cheers Barn.

It wasn’t too long ago that I went back over the case but I might have a revisit over the next week or two (on holiday at the moment) I have the new one on order too.

There’s a lot of weeding out of rumours or sightings. We get X was seen by y and z but y and z are never named. That kind of stuff.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I just woke up to an email saying that Royal Mail had tried and failed to post the new Bible John book. I’ll have to mess around rearranging delivery when I get home a week today.

[rjpalmer]

I do think however that the teeth mold is very significant. I think it confirms that there was a bite mark on Helens body. I cannot see any other reason for having a mold made.

It was reported in the Glasgow papers that the police sent a photograph of the mold to every dentist in Glasgow, hoping the teeth would be recognized. I don't think there's any reasonable doubt that it was a genuine lead. Her friends and family would have known if she had a pre-existing bite, and the police could tell how fresh it was.

The question I would pose is whether McInnis was aware of this and had his teeth deliberately pulled, or whether it was a case of "damn, he had false teeth in his old age and now we can't check."

[rjpalmer]

In reference to the above, here’s a story that might give some insight into contemporary police thinking:


We are often victims of coincidence. But I’ve heard no stranger tale than the situation a colleague found himself in last week.

Mr. John Porter, former editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer, is now the Editor-in Chief of 40 weekly newspapers in Lincolnshire.

Last Monday Mr. Porter was visited by detectives investigating “the Biby John murder."

TEETH OUT

Said Mr. Porter: “They wanted to know if I’d had two teeth extracted at Glasgow Medical school not long after Mrs. Puttock was murdered. I confirmed that I had.”

Suddenly Mr. Porter realized that not only was his name John, but that he had been editor of a religious newspaper in Glasgow.

“I was horrified,” he told me. “Even though I had nothing on my conscience.”

A spokesman for Glasgow’s Marine Division police told me: “The man we are hunting for has a front tooth overlapping the other.”

“We have checked with every Glasgow dentist on about one thousand patients, trying to find a clue which would lead us to Bible John’s true identity.”

Mr. Porter has merely been the victim of a coincidence—however bizarre his story might be.

--Sunday Mail (Glasgow) 29 November 1970.

[barnflatwyngarde]

In reference to the above, here’s a story that might give some insight into contemporary police thinking:


We are often victims of coincidence. But I’ve heard no stranger tale than the situation a colleague found himself in last week.

Mr. John Porter, former editor of the Scottish Catholic Observer, is now the Editor-in Chief of 40 weekly newspapers in Lincolnshire.

Last Monday Mr. Porter was visited by detectives investigating “the Biby John murder."

TEETH OUT

Said Mr. Porter: “They wanted to know if I’d had two teeth extracted at Glasgow Medical school not long after Mrs. Puttock was murdered. I confirmed that I had.”

Suddenly Mr. Porter realized that not only was his name John, but that he had been editor of a religious newspaper in Glasgow.

“I was horrified,” he told me. “Even though I had nothing on my conscience.”

A spokesman for Glasgow’s Marine Division police told me: “The man we are hunting for has a front tooth overlapping the other.”

“We have checked with every Glasgow dentist on about one thousand patients, trying to find a clue which would lead us to Bible John’s true identity.”

Mr. Porter has merely been the victim of a coincidence—however bizarre his story might be.

--Sunday Mail (Glasgow) 29 November 1970.

Great find RJ.

I have been thinking about how we could take this fascinating case forward.

I've one idea that I've been bouncing around, but I'll wait until the new Bible John book by Jillian Bavin-Mizzi arrives next week and have a look at her sources.

Her previous book was very well researched with lots of sources listed.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Like many cases nothing is clear cut with Bible John. We tend to get a lot of “well it was said that…” or “a witness said that…” without giving us the name of that person or whether the point was verified so we can never get an absolutely clear version of events. In the other thread we are discussing the new suspect John Templeton but I thought that I’d do a kind of presentation of the ‘case’ against John Irvine McInnes.

When the cold case investigation into the Bible John murders took place officers saw from ‘action 14’ that just two hours after Helen Puttock’s body was discovered officers went to interview a suspect at Hamilton Police Station after visiting the village of Stonehouse. Normally this kind of interview would have been carried out by perhaps a Detective Sergeant or a Detective Constable or both but this interview was done by Detective Superintendent Joe Beattie, Detective Superintendent Tom Valentine, Detective Inspector William Campbell and Detective Inspector Tommy Grant. So why the ‘big guns?’ And why Hamilton Station when Patrick Marine Station would have been considered the more likely venue?

When McEwan and Hughes (two of the cold case officers) interviewed Joe Beattie in the nineties he recalled the Stonehouse visit but he couldn’t recall the suspects name. Apparently he could remember however that the suspect was put in front of Jeannie Langford but she “wouldn’t have him.” Beattie said that the suspects name would be in the police files but it wasn’t.

They went back to see Beattie and he advised them to speak to an officer called Jimmy McInnes who came from Stonehouse and who had worked on the case. It was later stated by serving police officers that Beattie and McInnes were close. McInnes denied working on the case, claiming that he’d only helped out on the phones once. He got angry about being pressed on the subject but finally admitted that the suspect in question was his cousin John Irvine McInnes. McEwan and Hughes spoke to many officers from the original enquiry and were told that the first port of call for those original officers in Stonehouse was the home of Sandy McInnes, who was Jimmy McInnes’s brother and John Irvine McInnes cousin.

So to recap, just two hours after Helen Puttock’s body is discovered a team of very senior officers are in Stonehouse and they have officers at the door of John Irvine McInnes’s cousin. Sandy himself said that the reason for their visit was that a Moylan’s card was found at the scene of Helen’s murder. I don’t know how many stores that Moylan’s had or how many employees but it seems likely that there was something about this card that led specifically to the name McInnes. That said, McEwan and Hughes talked to Mickey Moylan, who was John Irvine McInnes’s employer at the time, and he said that a salesman at his Wishaw shop, Thomas Murphy, had been taken to Partick Marine Station which at least points to a Moylan’s connection. Another employee, Leonard Smith, was also put in front of Jeannie and he was asked to show his teeth. Both Smith and Murphy had been at a furniture show in Glasgow on the night that Puttock was killed and they had ended up at the Barrowland.

At the time of the original inquiry a Barrowland regular, a Mrs (I couldn’t make out her name in the podcast but it appeared to begin with ‘P.’) said that she knew the man’s name and that he was a Barrowland regular and so Jimmy McInnes went to interview her. In the incident book the result is blank. In the index an attempt had been made to erase her name and the following statements had been re-numbered to try and hide the gap.

Apparently the taxi driver, Alexander Hannah, attended the station on the Sunday to get his cab checked for prints. This was done by Jimmy McInnes and nothing showed up. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a Glasgow taxi with no prints. While the prints were being looked for McInnes and James Long took Hannah for a drive to retrace the route…this was on Sunday 2nd November at around 2pm. It appears that the police visit to Stonehouse took place on the morning of the 2nd. At 2pm an ID parade took place where Jeannie (and others?) didn’t pick anyone out. Hannah, who was with the police at the time never saw an ID parade. Remember…this was the Jimmy McInnes who said that he’d played no active role in the investigation.

Whilst we have no stories of violence from McInnes we certainly have stories of heavy drinking and strange behaviour and at least one source mentioning o tendency toward biblical quotes.

Then we get the request for an exhumation and, as we all know, these aren’t easily granted. The very fact that an exhumation was granted couldn’t have been solely because a card was found near to the body of Helen Puttock. There must have been more to it than that as the police really aren’t keen on looking stupid and they felt strongly that the case was close to being solved. The exhumation took place because they found points of similarity in the DNA between the semen stains recovered from Helen Puttock and one of McInnes relative.

Finally, to sum up. We have a man who came to the police’s attention because of a piece of physical evidence found at a crime scene. There must surely have been more than that to justify the resulting DNA tests. Then those DNA results, plus other evidence, must have been pretty strong to encourage the police to apply for an exhumation and for that exhumation to get granted and for the apparent level of confidence that the police a[dared to have that McInnes would prove to have been Bible John. The poor quality of the sample meant that no accurate results could be gained though.

I can’t shake the feeling that John Irvine McInnes was possibly/probably Bible John. I wouldn’t bet on it though.

[cobalt]

Is it possible that McInnes, Smith and Murphy all attended the furniture show in Glasgow that day and went as a group to the Barrowland afterwards? That might explain the slightly formal clothing noted on BJ since he had dressed for a business meeting. They would all have been carrying company cards probably so Helen Puttock could have been handed one by any of the three men in the course of the evening. Possibly the police interest in McInnes was down to BJ reportedly showing a card to Helen as he was leaving, or maybe the cards were personalised? For all that BJ, whoever he was, might have been handed a card by one of the group intent on impressing the Saturday night revellers. Or he might have picked up a card left lying on a table. So maybe the company card is a red herring.

Two things stand out to me from HS' summary- apart from what seems like police corruption. One is: why did the police focus on the house of Sandy McInnes when they were presumably looking for John McInnes? Why is the cousin Sandy McInnes significant to them? Was he put on the ID parade instead of John?

And secondly, the failure to allow the taxi driver to ID a suspect only a few hours after the crime is inexplicable.

[Herlock Sholmes]

It’s a possibility that they all went together or maybe the two of them went and saw McInnes while they were there?

The point about Sandy is an interesting one and certainly one that I don’t have a real answer for. In noticed by checking my notes on the Garcia book that around the time of the Docker murder McInnes split from his wife, Ella. They eventually divorced in 1972. Im wondering if, after the split, he was staying with his cousin? Or maybe they thought that he might know where they might find him?

I’d certainly like to have more information on Hannah who was of course a vital witness. This is from the notes that I took from episode 8 of the podcast:

John Irvine McInnes’s photo was on file at the Criminal Records Office because of his fraud charge. They got a copy and put it with 11 similar black and white photographs. His photo was taken after the murders so he was slightly older at the time it was taken. They showed the photographs to Alexander Hannah and he instantly picked out McInnes as the man who was with Helen Puttock in his taxi. He even said that he looked a bit older in the photo.

They then showed the photos to the bouncer who was involved in the cigarette machine altercation. He said that he’d know him if he saw him. He immediately picked out John Irvine McInnes.

They went to the Procurator Fiscal and he told them that if McInnes had been alive he’d have issued a warrant for him.

[cobalt]

So it seems that neither the taxi driver nor one of the bouncers at the Barrowland was ever offered the opportunity to ID the suspect John McInnes when he had been taken into police custody. This was a little more than 12 hours after the crime when their recollections would have been most vivid.

We are led to assume that Jeannie Langford was given the opportunity and did not ID McInnes. But if McInnes was being held at Hamilton Police Station, can we be sure he was ever put before her? There seems to be no surviving record of McInnes being interviewed or put on an ID parade.

The high powered delegation of detectives which made its way to the Stonehouse area reeks to me of freemasonry, an organisation with a powerful influence in central Scotland. A brother in distress needed their help so they were obliged to do their best by him. A quiet confession, a media arrangement, a sympathetic judge, a relatively soft sentence (on mental health grounds) and a decent billet to serve it in. That's all within the aegis of the Brotherhood.

But covering up murder would have been asking a great deal too much of high profile detectives like Beattie, men who guarded jealously their professional reputations. The Glasgow police did not cover up for the murderer Robertson in 1950 and he was one of their own. That's not to say that there was not obstruction lower down the food chain. Beatie's claim that 'maybe their hearts weren't in it' might be an acknowledgment of this.