Bible John: A New Suspect by Jill Bavin-Mizzi

[Herlock Sholmes]

Interesting. I've heard of classical Romans slitting their wrists while in their baths, but never of this slicing open the armpit. Very unique, I'd say.

It does seem strange to say the least. I don’t think that we can deduce anything from it though.

[Pcdunn]

I wonder if anyone else has ever committed suicide in that way?

Interesting. I've heard of classical Romans slitting their wrists while in their baths, but never of this slicing open the armpit. Very unique, I'd say.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The money McInnes is alleged to have 'borrowed' (presumably in the mid 1960s) would be worth about £25,000 today, so a not inconsiderable sum. He couldn't have gambled that much away by playing dominoes badly in the local pub. Are there no tales of him being a regular at the bookmakers? Blokes who gamble every day are in my experience always checking the racing results during working hours and if they are regulars can phone in bets since they have a credit account. Odd no one has remarked on this gambling habit in relation to McInnes, or that he boasted of some recent win when chatting in the taxi.

It seems that McInnes booked himself into a psychiatric unit on two separate occasions- once in Ayr and once in Lanarkshire- after being exposed as a fraudster. Or maybe there was only one occasion and the story is confused.

Helen MacMillan said: “ He was a real gambler, the sort of man who would bet on two flies climbing up a wall.” As you say, there’s no way he’s losing that kind of money to the pensioners in The Ship Inn over a game of Fives and Threes. I haven’t read of any mention of betting on the horses (unless I have and I’m just not remembering it) but I bet the local bookies knew him. And only an hours drive from Stonehouse to Ayr racecourse too.

[Herlock Sholmes]

How to get to the truth with such conflicting information?


According to Samson and Crow:

When John and Ella get married John is assistant manager in a furniture store.

He and his wife then ran the old people’s home in Ayr which was apparently called Innesfield.

He then borrowed £1000 from Ella’s cousin Helen MacMillan but never paid it back. Helen believed that he’d gambled it away.

He then went to work at the Carrick Furniture firm in Ayr.

He then book himself into Ailsa Psychiatric Institution in Ayr whilst he was facing embezzlement charges.

At some point McInnes lived in the village of Newrathill in Lanarkshire.

Villagers in Stonehouse speak of McInnes attempting suicide 3 or 4 times.

I can add another job from Samson and Crow that I missed whilst skimming through earlier. One of his army pals, James O’Donnell first met him (pre army) when they both worked at Rowan’s clothing shop in Buchanan Street, Glasgow.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Picking up on New Waterloo's thoughts on BJ and armpits. We're probably in Freudian territory here but the method of suicide and the placing of the sanitary towel on Helen Puttock does seem more than coincidence.

It may explain another puzzle as to why BJ restricted his murders to women who were menstruating. Armpits are traps for human odour and it's sometimes possible to notice when a woman is on her period due to a stronger scent from her sweat. Helen Puttock was wearing a sleeveless dress when she went out dancing at the Barrowfield I think. I am assuming that BJ's views on women were very much taken from Leviticus and that he thought they should be indoors at such times, not out dancing.

I wonder if anyone else has ever committed suicide in that way?

[cobalt]

The money McInnes is alleged to have 'borrowed' (presumably in the mid 1960s) would be worth about £25,000 today, so a not inconsiderable sum. He couldn't have gambled that much away by playing dominoes badly in the local pub. Are there no tales of him being a regular at the bookmakers? Blokes who gamble every day are in my experience always checking the racing results during working hours and if they are regulars can phone in bets since they have a credit account. Odd no one has remarked on this gambling habit in relation to McInnes, or that he boasted of some recent win when chatting in the taxi.

It seems that McInnes booked himself into a psychiatric unit on two separate occasions- once in Ayr and once in Lanarkshire- after being exposed as a fraudster. Or maybe there was only one occasion and the story is confused.

[Herlock Sholmes]

That's interesting stuff Herlock.

Strangely enough I am waiting for my copy of Samson and Crow's book to arrive.

I wonder if Audrey Gillan is fleshing out the gaps in John McInnes's life.

The village that McInnes lived in is Newarthill.
These weird Scottish names, plus the weird and wonderful Glasgow dialect must be doing your nut in.

I hadn’t noticed that I’d spelled it differently Barn. I don’t know if I can get away with blaming auto-correct?

It’s certainly strange how we get the variations. Hartwood and Ailsa for example. Baffling. Rumour and assumption must play a part I’m guessing .

[barnflatwyngarde]

How to get to the truth with such conflicting information?


According to Samson and Crow:

When John and Ella get married John is assistant manager in a furniture store.

He and his wife then ran the old people’s home in Ayr which was apparently called Innesfield.

He then borrowed £1000 from Ella’s cousin Helen MacMillan but never paid it back. Helen believed that he’d gambled it away.

He then went to work at the Carrick Furniture firm in Ayr.

He then book himself into Ailsa Psychiatric Institution in Ayr whilst he was facing embezzlement charges.

At some point McInnes lived in the village of Newrathill in Lanarkshire.

Villagers in Stonehouse speak of McInnes attempting suicide 3 or 4 times.

That's interesting stuff Herlock.

Strangely enough I am waiting for my copy of Samson and Crow's book to arrive.

I wonder if Audrey Gillan is fleshing out the gaps in John McInnes's life.

The village that McInnes lived in is Newarthill.
These weird Scottish names, plus the weird and wonderful Glasgow dialect must be doing your nut in.

[Herlock Sholmes]

How to get to the truth with such conflicting information?


According to Samson and Crow:

When John and Ella get married John is assistant manager in a furniture store.

He and his wife then ran the old people’s home in Ayr which was apparently called Innesfield.

He then borrowed £1000 from Ella’s cousin Helen MacMillan but never paid it back. Helen believed that he’d gambled it away.

He then went to work at the Carrick Furniture firm in Ayr.

He then book himself into Ailsa Psychiatric Institution in Ayr whilst he was facing embezzlement charges.

At some point McInnes lived in the village of Newrathill in Lanarkshire.

Villagers in Stonehouse speak of McInnes attempting suicide 3 or 4 times.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This quote was found by Roger Palmer:


“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 Bible 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

[Herlock Sholmes]

I just noticed this..on the subject of teeth.

Audrey Gillan: “At the time of Helen Puttock's murder, John Irvine McInnes had his own teeth, but three years later, he did not. So, what they were hoping to do when they dug up the body, and they were devastated to learn that there was no top teeth, so that was actually what they were doing it for, I think.”

I knew that I’d seen some mention of the top teeth being missing but I couldn’t recall where.

[Herlock Sholmes]

After reading about the strange goings-on with the cops and suspect McInnes, reading his dental records seem to have gone missing strikes me as more strangeness. Yet more cover-up? Or merely a weird coincidence?

Hi Pat,

I’m unsure about the state of record keeping in the 1960’s dental industry but it was pre-computer of course and the police spoke to a large number of businesses with no luck. I can’t see how they could have missed McInnes’s dentist (whichever one it was) so I can only assume that by the time that the police looked McInnes dentist was gone, along with the records.

[Pcdunn]

From Bible John: A New Suspect by Jill Bavin-Mizzi

“Meanwhile, Donald McDonald, Professor of Oral Pathology at Glasgow University, was asked to compare John McInnes’s teeth with the bite mark found on Helen Puttock’s wrist (preserved as it was in a plaster mould). Professor McDonald concluded that, “while Mr McInnes’s teeth might have made the marks, because of the limited detail it was not possible to make a valid judgement about probability.”262 This “limited detail” stemmed from the fact that John McInnes had been fitted with dentures some three years after Helen Puttock’s murder and so there were simply no teeth to compare.263 His dental records have not as yet been found.”

As for the info on McInnes being fitted with dentures three years after the Puttock murder she cites Audrey Gillan from her introduction to the podcast as the source of this info. We don’t know where this information comes from but I think that we can safely assume that AG got it from a solid source. I can’t be certain but it looks like the authorities either weren’t aware of his dentures before the exhumation or, if they had been told about them, then they weren’t sure of the extent of them because they clearly had hopes of a match up with the bite mark.

After reading about the strange goings-on with the cops and suspect McInnes, reading his dental records seem to have gone missing strikes me as more strangeness. Yet more cover-up? Or merely a weird coincidence?

[cobalt]

Picking up on New Waterloo's thoughts on BJ and armpits. We're probably in Freudian territory here but the method of suicide and the placing of the sanitary towel on Helen Puttock does seem more than coincidence.

It may explain another puzzle as to why BJ restricted his murders to women who were menstruating. Armpits are traps for human odour and it's sometimes possible to notice when a woman is on her period due to a stronger scent from her sweat. Helen Puttock was wearing a sleeveless dress when she went out dancing at the Barrowfield I think. I am assuming that BJ's views on women were very much taken from Leviticus and that he thought they should be indoors at such times, not out dancing.

[New Waterloo]

Thanks Herlock for the info. I was unaware of most of it. He certainly was a complex character with a somewhat muddled life it seems. If he was BJ then the way in which he avoided detection was probably though his outrages up front demeanour. Just being there, not hiding, not moving away, just fronting it out with bravado. Possible I suppose. The reality was I suppose that he was and is a great suspect but not really any strong evidence. Even Jeannie the star witness doesn't really get us any closer.

I suppose even if he kept going to the Barrowland through all of that period and after he creates his own defence. He just says yes I go there often. So what. Unless he was seen entering the taxi with Jeannie and Helen it means nothing.

He would be no more of a suspect than the two other employees from Moylans at the Barrowland that night or anybody else there that night.

The question I think you have raised before (and others I guess) is McInnes was suspected in the first place and very soon after Helens murder. That information could well be an important key.

NW