Bible John: A New Suspect by Jill Bavin-Mizzi

[Herlock Sholmes]

From the Helen Puttock episode Barn.


At 5.12 it sounds like AG says “pretty Scottish people” but that surely cant be right?

At 6.40 it sounds like AG says “I found Margaret work” ?

At 7.30 Margaret says something that sounds like “well I went there in 1830.”

At 21.05 what is the word Jeannie uses before ‘mesmerised’?

[barnflatwyngarde]

From the Helen Puttock episode Barn.


At 5.12 it sounds like AG says “pretty Scottish people” but that surely cant be right?

At 6.40 it sounds like AG says “I found Margaret work” ?

At 7.30 Margaret says something that sounds like “well I went there in 1830.”

At 21.05 what is the word Jeannie uses before ‘mesmerised’?

5.12 "scones, pancakes for tea..."

6.40 It sounds like "I found Margaret work".

7.30 "I went to her 18th birthday".

21.05 " I was staunin' (standing) mesmerised.

[Herlock Sholmes]

5.12 "scones, pancakes for tea..."

6.40 It sounds like "I found Margaret work".

7.30 "I went to her 18th birthday".

21.05 " I was staunin' (standing) mesmerised.

Cheers Barn.

[cobalt]

The photo Barn uploaded of Jemima MacDonald is very poignant. The standard photo of Jemima which we all know is hardly flattering but this one shows the obviously genuine love of a mother for her child. A precious thing and heightened by the rather sparse, spartan backdrop which lies in the background behind her and her daughter. Maybe if Beattie and his team had access to this photo they would have approached the investigation in a better way.

Still on the matter of perception, I do wonder about the validity of the Lennox Patterson portrait which history has judged as too mannered and specific to elicit a valuable response. I'm not doubting Patterson's technical ability and we have to remember that Jeannie was very impressed with the final result. But the BJ as sketched by Patterson looks a far more benign presence than the other more hardline mugshots produced at the time. He looks more like a Music Teacher at Hyndland Academy than a killer, whereas the earlier photofits show a more realistic 'street' face.

Having said that I don't doubt that the investigation encountered Bible John at some point, but unfortunately they failed to nail him. He could hardly have escaped the myriad of names being supplied to the police at the time. Yet rather like Sutcliffe, no one ever quite joined the dots. In the Yorkshire Ripper Case they knew Peter Sutcliffe's blood group, his appearance (which he never changed), his shoe size, his make of shoe, his gap tooth, and had a fair idea he was a lorry driver and they even had a fix on where he probably worked due to a new bank note discovered on a victim. His car was seen cruising countless times in Red Light areas yet when arrested he was not even in the top 100 suspects! Despite being interviewed 9 times at least.

I think BJ comes into a similar category. He was traced, interviewed, and mistakenly eliminated. I'm not saying BJ was either McInnes or Templeton but the police must have let him slip through their fingers. The public did their job: the police didn't.

[barnflatwyngarde]

Had another go at upscaling the image of Joe Beattie with lots of BJ photofits behind him.

[barnflatwyngarde]

Nope!

Still can't seem to get the pivture large enough, although it looks great on my laptop.

Doh!

[Geddy2112]

[barnflatwyngarde]

Well done Geddy.
I don't know what I was doing wrong, but I was doing it consistently.

[Geddy2112]

Well done Geddy.
I don't know what I was doing wrong, but I was doing it consistently.

Hehe, no worries, I actually uploaded the wrong one, here is the correct version for those eagle-eye readers

[barnflatwyngarde]

Hehe, no worries, I actually uploaded the wrong one, here is the correct version for those eagle-eye readers

Nice one!

No wonder Joe Beattie screwed it up.

[Herlock Sholmes]

From the podcast Bonus Episode: Jeannie:

“After it happened they took me to the police officer in Glasgow and I walked in and I looked and you have no idea the sensation I got inside me when I looked at this other poster. Not the one they had in Barrowland. It was this other one. I went like, that is definitely him. There’s a resemblance there. It was the very first photo they must have got off some of the witnesses from the other cases. It wasn’t him but the resemblance was there. It was good enough to make me feel sick. You don’t get that in your gut. But they says, no, you can’t connect it. He either disappeared or he had a good alibi and somebody covered up for him.”


The Patterson portrait was based on a description from Jeannie as she had definitely seen the man known as Bible John and at close quarters and yet here she is saying that the poster that was the one that she felt stood out out to her as resembling the real Bible John was one that the police “must have got off some of the witnesses from the other cases.” So not the Patterson portrait?

I find this curious to say the least. Why would she think that a picture of Bible John was more accurate than the one that was done with her input? And why did the police say that the man in the picture couldn’t have been the guilty man?