Bible John: A New Suspect by Jill Bavin-Mizzi

[barnflatwyngarde]

Yeah, Barn!

I also had a wry smile at "Knightsbridge" instead of "Knightswood".

Oh Ms D, I missed that one.

I know that area of Glasgow like the back of my hand, but I confess that I did check on Google Maps if there actually was a Bryers Road in Glasgow. Doh!

[Ms Diddles]

Each to his or her own, but I still find it quite a stretch to believe that any printer would describe himself as working in a laboratory, any more than an auto mechanic or a skilled wood worker would, but I'll leave it at that.

Yes, that part of the theory jarred with me a bit too.

[Ms Diddles]

When the author talks about "Bryers Road" she is referring to Byres Road.

Yeah, Barn!

I also had a wry smile at "Knightsbridge" instead of "Knightswood".

[Ms Diddles]

Great synopsis, Barn!

With regard to the movements of the killer after he got off the number 6 bus at Gray Street a short time after the murder of Helen Puttock, I have always been mystified by the oft repeated statement that the killer got off the bus at that point because he was making his way to the Govan ferry to cross the river to the south side of the city.
It is just as likely that the killer got off the bus at that particular stop because he was heading for home.
John Templeton at that time was living in Melrose Gardens, which was 1.1 miles away from Gray Street, a mere 20 minute walk.

I agree.

I have always been quite surprised that the police sounded so confident in their assertion that the killer likely caught the Govan ferry despite the lack of any evidence to corroborate this.

If Templeton was the killer, or if the killer lived in that general area of the West End, I would suggest that Gray St would be a prime stop if you wanted to cut through Kelvingrove Park unseen on your way home.

There are numerous exits and it would certainly be a perfect way to get back to Melrose Gardens avoiding the streets.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Very good critique of the book Herlock.

With regard to your points 1-7, here are my thoughts:

1. The way I read it, the Templeton/McInnes familial connection comes from Margaret Templeton who married Thomas Murdoch in the the 18th Century. this is where the DNA connection begins.

2. John Muir Templeton appears to have been ruled out because ther is no evidence that he was ever in a children's home or ever fostered out.

3. I can't argue with your comments at all, however it seems to me that as she moved chronologically through the people named John Templeton, the circumstantial evidence does appear to firm up. If the eveidence had not firmed up, the author's case folds.

4. It is certainly strange that the killer would use his real name. I struggle to accept the author's contention that he did thia because his religious beliefs forbade him from lying.

5. Again, I can't argue with your point re the caravan in Irvine being a possible teasing clue. John Mcinnes was known as Irvine among his friends, not John.

6. Re John Templeton's hair, I have a photograph of him when I worked with him showing his hair parted on the left, sweeping to the right. His wife also confirmed that he always wore his hair like that.

7. As I said in my earlier post, a close examination of the plaster cast teeth heald by Joe Beattie shows an almost imperceptible overlap. In fact, I would go as far as to say that if we weren't looking for an overlap, there is nothing in the photo that would suggest an overlap to us.

One final thing I noted. Jeannie Langford commented on the photo of John McInnes showing him in his army uniform, saying that he wasn't the man who shared a taxi with her and Helen that night, because she would have remembered his protruding ears.

But I agree with you Herlock that John Mcinnes is still someone of interest.

Cheers Barn,

Point 1) I’ve probably not been very clear. Either that or perhaps I’ve misunderstood the meaning so I’ll try and be clearer. The author worked back down the years until she found the McInnes/Templeton link and she then proceeded forward toward the present day. In doing this she found John Muir Templeton. But the next 32 John Templeton’s that she found however weren’t found by following a family link but by looking for John Templeton’s of the correct age range in the Scotland’s People Database. So the John Templeton that she finishes up with can’t be shown to have any family connection to the McInnes family.

Point 6) You’ve removed any doubt there Barn. If you have a photograph of him with his hair combed that way then the authors suggestion that the photograph is in reverse is a valid one.

Point 3) I agree that the circumstantial evidence does firm up and is certainly intriguing. I’ll list the authors points for those that haven’t read the book:

• Bible John used the name John Templeton.
• The name John Templeton exists in the ancestors of Hector and Janet McInnes and their DNA shared patterns with the DNA extracted from Helen Puttock’s stockings.
• He fits the BJ age profile.
• Would have had a local accent like BJ.
• He was a foster child as BJ was suspected of being.
• He was fostered by a family who lived within walking distance of the Children’s Home that BJ identified.
• Templeton grew up with one sibling, a sister, as BJ said that he did.
• JT was living locally when new timetables and fare schedules came out. BJ was familiar with these.
• JT moved to a flat in North Kelvinside 3 months before Helen Puttock’s murder which was within walking distance of where BJ alighted the number 6 night bus on the night of HP’s murder.

On the second point above Barn, this is what I meant in my own point 1. The name John Templeton is in the ancestors with shared DNA but not this John Templeton who wasn’t found by following the family line.

I’ll add that he resembles the painting.

[barnflatwyngarde]

This is an impressive book and the author is to be congratulated on her work but for the benefit of those that haven’t read the book I’ll add some background. The author tracked back 7 generations to the 18th century to find the name Templeton in the McInnes ancestry (on the basis of the ‘John,’ who was with Helen in the taxi, saying that his name was ‘Templeton, Sempleson, or Emerson’). She says: “So the odds of finding the name “Templeton” among a total of 63 surnames introduced in any seven-generational search are remote. But the odds of finding the surname offered by Bible John among the ancestors of a family with DNA connection to the killer, is well beyond remote. It is nothing short of extraordinary.”

She has produced genealogical tables which, I have to admit, don’t help me much as genealogy is a foreign language to me I’m afraid. I don’t know how I’m supposed to read those tables or what they are supposed to tell me. That’s not a criticism of the author by the way, I’m just expressing a shortcoming of my own that I have in regard to this kind of stuff. No doubt the genealogists on here would make light work of them.

That said, the author now had a point of convergence between the McInnes family line and the name Templeton. She then worked her way forward from the 18th century to the modern day creating ‘a family tree in reverse,’ to use her own phrase. The first name that came up was John Muir Templeton (1933-1998) who was turning 36 in 1969. Slightly older than reports but not problematically so. But next the author says that there are problems that arise when trying to track all of the John Templeton’s that are the targets of the search and so a more efficient alternative was to use the Scotland’s People database and to look for any John Templeton’s born between 1931 and 1946 inclusive. The search brought up 32 of them but of course it can’t be known if any of these have any kind of familial link to the McInnes family.

The author then uses various criteria to narrow down the list. Some are obvious. For example two sadly didn’t make it to adulthood and one emigrated to Canada in 1957 with no record of him returning to the UK. She then tracked through records and through social media groups looking for photographs or descriptions to eliminate those that were clearly unlike the descriptions of Bible John. This narrowed the list down to sixteen. She then eliminate three on the grounds that they were manual workers and Bible John had pristine hands according to Jeannie. Then as John mentioned being fostered and that he knew that they had passed the location of what used to be a children’s home during the taxi ride she checked which John Templeton’s had definitely grown up with their parents (and not in possible care). This process left her with just five John Templeton’s. She had to give up on two of these as no information could be found so she now had three. And it looked like all three could have spent time in care.

The first was born in 1945 but via a Facebook group she found that, in his younger days, this guy would have had dark hair so out he went. Two left. Next was John McAdam Templeton born in 1939. The author then traced back his lineage to a point of connection with the McInnes family. After much research there was nothing to connect him to the Scotstoun Children’s Home or even to Glasgow (he was born in Muirkirk) but he couldn’t be eliminated from the short list.

The final John Templeton, the man that she believes was Bible John, was born on 27th March 1945 and died in 2015!


Ok..points and questions.


1. My first point is that I was under the impression that the initial claim was that the author had found a suspect that wasn’t John Irvine McInnes but who had a familial connection? Did I get the wrong impression or misunderstand the lead up to the book because, as it stands, there is no evidence that this John Templeton has any connection to the McInnes family. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have one of course.

2. A question for Barn and MsD…what happened to John Muir Templeton (1933-1998)? What did I miss? How and why was he eliminated? It seems that he was discovered as having an actual ancestral link but then forgotten about?

3. Is it being forgotten that Jeannie said: “Templeton, Sempleson, Emerson,” as possibles for the name given by John in the taxi? So why not one of the other two names? Also, as she was saying that it just sounded like one of the above, then it’s possible that it could have been something entirely different. It could have been Templeman or Emery or Henderson?

4. I’m also not totally convinced about the killer giving his real name in the taxi. The author suggests that as the killer had a rigid moral code that he would have be Tomas Murdoch on the 18th Century. This is where the DNA en reluctant to lie. Others might disagree but I’m nowhere near convinced by this. Yes, he knew that Helen was going to die but Jeannie wasn’t. Could he have been unaware that Jeannie had heard him give his real name? Not impossible but surely unlikely in the confines of a taxi? And was it a black cab type or just a normal car? If the latter then he would also have risked the driver hearing it too. So whilst I’m not dismissing it I tend to doubt that a killer would have given his real name under those circumstances.

5. Might he have given a clue though? I haven’t seen this picked up on before but when asked about what he did for holidays John said that his family had a caravan. Where? In Irvine (John IRVINE McInnes?) Only a suggestion.

6. The photograph of the John Templeton who is the subject of the book (and who I have to admit looks a lot like the painting by Patterson) has his hair parted on the wrong side and the missing tooth on the wrong side but his wife recalled which side he parted his hair on so it appears possible that the photograph was reversed from the negative. I was a little wary of this at first but I certainly don’t want to imply any dishonesty as I see no evidence of it anywhere in the book. Agree or disagree with conclusions and suggestions, I think that this is an honest book.

7. Finally, in the photograph Templeton’s mouth isn’t open enough to see the overlapping teeth mentioned by Jeannie. A dentist said that he ‘might’ just be able to discern a slight overlap but this doesn’t convince me. Look at the mould that Beattie carried. It was made from Jeannie’s description and the overlap looks easily noticeable. Jeannie wasn’t a dentist. Any overlapping of John’s teeth would have been fairly easy to spot I’d have thought. I can’t see anyone meeting the John Templeton in the photo and noting an overlap.


Like Barn I certainly recommend this book. Was John Templeton Bible John? I tend to think not but he could have been. He’s certainly of interest. My money is still on John Irvine McInnes but will we ever get to the truth? Probably not. I’d like to see Audrey Gillan and Marcello Mega write a really heavyweight book on the subject though.

Very good critique of the book Herlock.

With regard to your points 1-7, here are my thoughts:

1. The way I read it, the Templeton/McInnes familial connection comes from Margaret Templeton who married Thomas Murdoch in the the 18th Century. this is where the DNA connection begins.

2. John Muir Templeton appears to have been ruled out because ther is no evidence that he was ever in a children's home or ever fostered out.

3. I can't argue with your comments at all, however it seems to me that as she moved chronologically through the people named John Templeton, the circumstantial evidence does appear to firm up. If the eveidence had not firmed up, the author's case folds.

4. It is certainly strange that the killer would use his real name. I struggle to accept the author's contention that he did thia because his religious beliefs forbade him from lying.

5. Again, I can't argue with your point re the caravan in Irvine being a possible teasing clue. John Mcinnes was known as Irvine among his friends, not John.

6. Re John Templeton's hair, I have a photograph of him when I worked with him showing his hair parted on the left, sweeping to the right. His wife also confirmed that he always wore his hair like that.

7. As I said in my earlier post, a close examination of the plaster cast teeth heald by Joe Beattie shows an almost imperceptible overlap. In fact, I would go as far as to say that if we weren't looking for an overlap, there is nothing in the photo that would suggest an overlap to us.

One final thing I noted. Jeannie Langford commented on the photo of John McInnes showing him in his army uniform, saying that he wasn't the man who shared a taxi with her and Helen that night, because she would have remembered his protruding ears.

But I agree with you Herlock that John Mcinnes is still someone of interest.

[cobalt]

We assume that most of the information revealed by BJ was provided by him in the taxi, but is it not possible that some of it came via Helen chatting to her sister in the ballroom, or even from remarks Castlemilk John made to Jeannie? Do we know for sure he offered his name when inside the taxi? I'm thinking of the Chinese Whispers problem here.

Providing one's surname in the context of a casual meeting seems unnecessarily formal. Castlemilk John did not find it necessary and I doubt that Helen or Jeannie did either. For that reason we have to be cautious about the name being genuine.

Taking up the point made by HS, if the author had spent the same amount of time researching persons called John Symington in the Glasgow area would she have come up with a suspect there as well?

According to Templeton's ex-wife, this latest suspect was questioned by police about 6 months after the last murder. (Which seems a bit tardy on their part given his name, age and penchant for dance halls.)We really need to know on what grounds he was discounted from the inquiry.

[Herlock Sholmes]

This is an impressive book and the author is to be congratulated on her work but for the benefit of those that haven’t read the book I’ll add some background. The author tracked back 7 generations to the 18th century to find the name Templeton in the McInnes ancestry (on the basis of the ‘John,’ who was with Helen in the taxi, saying that his name was ‘Templeton, Sempleson, or Emerson’). She says: “So the odds of finding the name “Templeton” among a total of 63 surnames introduced in any seven-generational search are remote. But the odds of finding the surname offered by Bible John among the ancestors of a family with DNA connection to the killer, is well beyond remote. It is nothing short of extraordinary.”

She has produced genealogical tables which, I have to admit, don’t help me much as genealogy is a foreign language to me I’m afraid. I don’t know how I’m supposed to read those tables or what they are supposed to tell me. That’s not a criticism of the author by the way, I’m just expressing a shortcoming of my own that I have in regard to this kind of stuff. No doubt the genealogists on here would make light work of them.

That said, the author now had a point of convergence between the McInnes family line and the name Templeton. She then worked her way forward from the 18th century to the modern day creating ‘a family tree in reverse,’ to use her own phrase. The first name that came up was John Muir Templeton (1933-1998) who was turning 36 in 1969. Slightly older than reports but not problematically so. But next the author says that there are problems that arise when trying to track all of the John Templeton’s that are the targets of the search and so a more efficient alternative was to use the Scotland’s People database and to look for any John Templeton’s born between 1931 and 1946 inclusive. The search brought up 32 of them but of course it can’t be known if any of these have any kind of familial link to the McInnes family.

The author then uses various criteria to narrow down the list. Some are obvious. For example two sadly didn’t make it to adulthood and one emigrated to Canada in 1957 with no record of him returning to the UK. She then tracked through records and through social media groups looking for photographs or descriptions to eliminate those that were clearly unlike the descriptions of Bible John. This narrowed the list down to sixteen. She then eliminate three on the grounds that they were manual workers and Bible John had pristine hands according to Jeannie. Then as John mentioned being fostered and that he knew that they had passed the location of what used to be a children’s home during the taxi ride she checked which John Templeton’s had definitely grown up with their parents (and not in possible care). This process left her with just five John Templeton’s. She had to give up on two of these as no information could be found so she now had three. And it looked like all three could have spent time in care.

The first was born in 1945 but via a Facebook group she found that, in his younger days, this guy would have had dark hair so out he went. Two left. Next was John McAdam Templeton born in 1939. The author then traced back his lineage to a point of connection with the McInnes family. After much research there was nothing to connect him to the Scotstoun Children’s Home or even to Glasgow (he was born in Muirkirk) but he couldn’t be eliminated from the short list.

The final John Templeton, the man that she believes was Bible John, was born on 27th March 1945 and died in 2015!


Ok..points and questions.


1. My first point is that I was under the impression that the initial claim was that the author had found a suspect that wasn’t John Irvine McInnes but who had a familial connection? Did I get the wrong impression or misunderstand the lead up to the book because, as it stands, there is no evidence that this John Templeton has any connection to the McInnes family. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have one of course.

2. A question for Barn and MsD…what happened to John Muir Templeton (1933-1998)? What did I miss? How and why was he eliminated? It seems that he was discovered as having an actual ancestral link but then forgotten about?

3. Is it being forgotten that Jeannie said: “Templeton, Sempleson, Emerson,” as possibles for the name given by John in the taxi? So why not one of the other two names? Also, as she was saying that it just sounded like one of the above, then it’s possible that it could have been something entirely different. It could have been Templeman or Emery or Henderson?

4. I’m also not totally convinced about the killer giving his real name in the taxi. The author suggests that as the killer had a rigid moral code that he would have been reluctant to lie. Others might disagree but I’m nowhere near convinced by this. Yes, he knew that Helen was going to die but Jeannie wasn’t. Could he have been unaware that Jeannie had heard him give his real name? Not impossible but surely unlikely in the confines of a taxi? And was it a black cab type or just a normal car? If the latter then he would also have risked the driver hearing it too. So whilst I’m not dismissing it I tend to doubt that a killer would have given his real name under those circumstances.

5. Might he have given a clue though? I haven’t seen this picked up on before but when asked about what he did for holidays John said that his family had a caravan. Where? In Irvine (John IRVINE McInnes?) Only a suggestion.

6. The photograph of the John Templeton who is the subject of the book (and who I have to admit looks a lot like the painting by Patterson) has his hair parted on the wrong side and the missing tooth on the wrong side but his wife recalled which side he parted his hair on so it appears possible that the photograph was reversed from the negative. I was a little wary of this at first but I certainly don’t want to imply any dishonesty as I see no evidence of it anywhere in the book. Agree or disagree with conclusions and suggestions, I think that this is an honest book.

7. Finally, in the photograph Templeton’s mouth isn’t open enough to see the overlapping teeth mentioned by Jeannie. A dentist said that he ‘might’ just be able to discern a slight overlap but this doesn’t convince me. Look at the mould that Beattie carried. It was made from Jeannie’s description and the overlap looks easily noticeable. Jeannie wasn’t a dentist. Any overlapping of John’s teeth would have been fairly easy to spot I’d have thought. I can’t see anyone meeting the John Templeton in the photo and noting an overlap.


Like Barn I certainly recommend this book. Was John Templeton Bible John? I tend to think not but he could have been. He’s certainly of interest. My money is still on John Irvine McInnes but will we ever get to the truth? Probably not. I’d like to see Audrey Gillan and Marcello Mega write a really heavyweight book on the subject though.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I agree. The impression I got from the podcast last year is that the business card is what led to McInnes's being questioned to begin with, so if the card did not exist, why was he (or he and his fellow employees) even contacted?

Hi Roger,

The cold case team found evidence that 2 days after the Puttock murder a team was sent out to Stonehouse. The first thing to notice was that this wasn’t just a mid-ranking Officer or two this group included DSupt’s Joe Beattie and To. Valentine. Apparently their first port of call was Sandy McInnes (John Irving’s cousin) Sandy recalled the visit and said the reason for it was that a Moylan’s card had been found.

[rjpalmer]

Given that John McInnes was interviewed along with two fellow employees I think it is reasonable to believe such a card was found.

I agree. The impression I got from the podcast last year is that the business card is what led to McInnes's being questioned to begin with, so if the card did not exist, why was he (or he and his fellow employees) even contacted?

[rjpalmer]

I don't know if the author is making a bit of a stretch with this point, but it seems clear that compositors were more than just manual workers.

Thanks for the links, Barn. I used to know a printer many years ago who owned and operated a linotype machine and showed me the basics of how it worked. They were really quite amazing machines--masterpieces of engineering.

Each to his or her own, but I still find it quite a stretch to believe that any printer would describe himself as working in a laboratory, any more than an auto mechanic or a skilled wood worker would, but I'll leave it at that.

[barnflatwyngarde]

This is a point that I was going to make Barn. The book is very good but I wonder if the author is sometimes guilty of putting a little too much weight on Press reports?

This point is curious imo. Was the DNA sample simply not good enough for a clear result (as I’d believed) or was McInnes exonerated as the author appears to confidently believe? In ‘A New Suspect’ on page 86 the author says that the family were told in 1996 via the Glasgow Herald that McInnes wasn’t the killer. That he had been comprehensively cleared. She then says that years later, to quell any doubts, Anthony Busuttil, who was the pathologist who represented the McInnes family said “the person we exhumed was not the person that was being looked for in terms of the Bible John crimes.” DI Little of Strathclyde Police apparently also said that the DNA was not McInnes’s.

So from this the author clearly states her belief that John Irvine McInnes couldn’t have been the killer. However the actual DNA testing was done by Erika Hegelberg and she said that the results couldn’t implicate or exonerate him. This is confirmed by Marie Cassidy who was pathologist for The Crown at the exhumation (as Busuttil represented the family) In her book she said “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the laboratory could not get a full profile and the results were described as inconclusive.”

Bavin-Mizzi has clearly done a lot of commendable research and the book certainly strikes me as an honest one (she doesn’t appear to be trying to fit someone up) but it’s difficult to see how it can be claimed that the DNA rules out McInnes?

You are bang on Herlock!

I think that the confusion comes from a report in The Glasgow Herald of 5th July 1996 which says:

"The Cambridge scientists concluded the DNA sequence taken from Mr McInnes's thigh bone was different from that taken by Strathclyde Police from Mrs Puttock's tights and similar DNA taken from the same source."

However, later on in the same article we have a direct quote from the Cambridge scientists which says:

"Due to the age and bad state of preservation of the biological evidence, particularly the semen stain, we concluded that there is not sufficient evidence from the current DNA information to link John McInnes to the scene of the murder of Helen Puttock.
The results of these DNA provided no evidence to suggest that the semen stain or hair left near the body of Helen Puttock originated from John McInnes."

Reading these two statements it is clear that the DNA testing did not exonerate John McInnes.

The report from the Cambridge scientists clearly says that "there is not sufficient evidence" to link McInnes to the murder of helen Puttock.

If Mr Busutti was representing the McInnes family, it is perhaps not surprising that he tried to put a positive spin on it for the family.

However, there is a huge difference between saying that John Mcinnes "was not the person that was being looked for in terms of the Bible John murders" and there being "not sufficient evidence."

Also note that the report mentions a hair was found near to the body of Helen Puttock.
I have not seen this mentioned anywhere else.

The author clearly does rely a lot on newspaper reports, but in the absence of official reports it is understandable.
There is even some confusion whether any of the victims were raped.

[cobalt]

If the author states confidently that MacInnes was 'clearly NOT' Bible John, what is her evidence for that bold statement?

Has she established that the DNA links to Templeton's family are stronger than the DNA links to McInnes' family?

If Templeton (who does not appear to resemble the famous BJ picture) is the guilty party then we are faced with a number of strange coincidences. Both McInnes and Templeton (did they know each other?) were patrons of the Barrowland Dance Hall on over 25s night. Both men liked to quote from the bible on occasion. And Templeton's relative McInnes, despite being completely innocent, was actually interviewed by police soon after the murder of Helen Puttock since an advertising card from his company had been found near the scene.*

Yet John Templeton, whose very name should surely have made him a person of interest in addition to his attendance at the Barrowland, was not contacted by police? Or was he contacted and for some spurious reason eliminated?

* I have read that there is no police record of an advertising card having been found, but that this was mentioned to police detectives conducting a cold case review in 1995. Given that John McInnes was interviewed along with two fellow employees I think it is reasonable to believe such a card was found. I think HS indicated that one source for this story was a journalist called Marcello. That would likely be Marcello Mega who did some good investigative work on the Dunblane Massacre of schoolchildren. I had phone contact with Mega several years ago when he worked at The Scotsman and could vouch for his accuracy. I recall he phoned me back to double check quotations he intended to use from me in an article.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Yes Herlock, the matter of the red purse jumped out at me.

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else.
I've been in contact with Bavin-Mizzi, and I will email her to see if she can provide a source for this, although I suspect it was probably sourced from a newspaper.
The obvious issue here is how much can we trust reports in the newspapers?

This is a point that I was going to make Barn. The book is very good but I wonder if the author is sometimes guilty of putting a little too much weight on Press reports?

This point is curious imo. Was the DNA sample simply not good enough for a clear result (as I’d believed) or was McInnes exonerated as the author appears to confidently believe? In ‘A New Suspect’ on page 86 the author says that the family were told in 1996 via the Glasgow Herald that McInnes wasn’t the killer. That he had been comprehensively cleared. She then says that years later, to quell any doubts, Anthony Busuttil, who was the pathologist who represented the McInnes family said “the person we exhumed was not the person that was being looked for in terms of the Bible John crimes.” DI Little of Strathclyde Police apparently also said that the DNA was not McInnes’s.

So from this the author clearly states her belief that John Irvine McInnes couldn’t have been the killer. However the actual DNA testing was done by Erika Hegelberg and she said that the results couldn’t implicate or exonerate him. This is confirmed by Marie Cassidy who was pathologist for The Crown at the exhumation (as Busuttil represented the family) In her book she said “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the laboratory could not get a full profile and the results were described as inconclusive.”

Bavin-Mizzi has clearly done a lot of commendable research and the book certainly strikes me as an honest one (she doesn’t appear to be trying to fit someone up) but it’s difficult to see how it can be claimed that the DNA rules out McInnes?

[barnflatwyngarde]

I should be close to finishing the book tonight with a bit of luck. A question for you (or anyone) Barn. Helen Puttock went out with a red purse that night. On page 44 the author says that the disheveled man on the number 6 bus paid his fair from a red purse. This is hugely significant of course but I hadn’t seen it written anywhere else. I used the search function on the books that I have and found no mention of this. I can’t recall if it might have been mentioned on the podcast but I’d have thought that such an important fact would have stuck in my memory? Is it familiar to you..or anyone else?

Yes Herlock, the matter of the red purse jumped out at me.

I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else.
I've been in contact with Bavin-Mizzi, and I will email her to see if she can provide a source for this, although I suspect it was probably sourced from a newspaper.
The obvious issue here is how much can we trust reports in the newspapers?