Bible John: A New Suspect by Jill Bavin-Mizzi

[barnflatwyngarde]

On page 117 of Crow and Samson's book " Bible John: Hunt for a Killer", the authors discuss John Irvine McInnes's wife Helen (Ella).

Helen remarried and took the surname of her new husband Rolfe Thornqvist.

According to Crow and Samson, Rolfe Thornqvist was replying to reporters about his wife's marriage to McInnes when he said:

"It is all history and no-one would involve her anyway. This is all in the past.
They interviewed her at the time.
If there had been any thought she knew anything, they would have inquired into it.
Obviously the police knew she had nothing to do with it".
(my emphasis)

If this report is accurate, it adds another strand to the belief that police, for whatever reason(s) had John Irvine McInnes firmly in their sights to such a degree that they felt the need to interview his wife.

[cobalt]

Samson and Crow's book confirms that it was 10 shillings.

Absolutely. To break a fiver back then was a big deal. I never saw an actual £10 note until several years later. When the UK miners won a pay rise in 1974 they saw their first £10 notes and called them 'Arthur Scargills.'

The cigarette machine incident at the Barrowland is linked to the taxi fare home for Jeannie and Helen. A 20 packet back then cost around 10/- and since they would have known the taxi fare to be around £1 presumably they did not have enough money for fags as well. In stepped Bible John with his offer to pay for the taxi home and off went Jeannie to the machine. So BJ earned their gratitude on two fronts as a result, which no doubt pleased the women at the time. Given later comments made by Jeannie I think the two women viewed BJ as a bit of a soft touch and maybe BJ was cunning enough to play along with this.

[barnflatwyngarde]

HS said:

The distance from Stonehouse to either Hamilton or Wishaw is about the same, around 8 miles. But his point about the three Moylans employees all living within 10 miles of each other is very likely correct. (Ten players from the Celtic football team which won the European Cup in 1967 were born within 11 miles of Glasgow.)



That's standard procedure these days and probably was back in 1969 as well. In my experience as a 'stooge' in an ID parade around the time of the BJ murders the parade was managed by an experienced station sergeant. No detectives involved in the burglary were seen by any of us. We had to give our names and addresses which were written down in the record, and sign that we had received payment.

Maybe Herlock has identified a problem of holding two ID parades around the same time. You obviously cannot show the witness the same 'stooges' as you did for the first parade since it would be obvious who the suspect actually was second time round. That might explain why Smith was not formally paraded- they didn't have enough suitable stooges.

Despite all the procedural requirements, I find it hard to believe that an experienced detective like Beattie would not have taken the opportunity to grill a suspect inside Partick Marine once he had been identified. His absence seems very odd.

Hi Cobalt,
I agree with your comments on ID parades.
There was a pub in my area that was only about 50 yards from the police station.

It was common for police to come into the pub and ask for some volunteers to stand in an ID parade.
There was no attempt to look specifically for people of a certain size, hair colour, build etc.

I too appeared in an ID parade, and was done in front of a sergeant and a constable or two.
No high ranking officers were present.
But yes you are right in thinking that surely Joe Beattie would want to there to see a prime suspect in an ID parade.

[New Waterloo]

That makes sense. Thanks Barnflat

[barnflatwyngarde]

Just been looking at the Bank of England calculator (what money was worth then and now comparison)

Inflation calculator | Bank of England

I have been thinking. For 1969 £10 seems quite a lot for George Puttock to hand over to Jeannie for the taxi. According to them it would work out as £146 which doesn't seem right to me. None the less considering a pint of beer was about 30p I suppose £10 was a lot

Not really sure what that means. There would certainly be enough to buy some alcohol somewhere (more than that stated by Jeannie)

Can anybody give us an idea of costs of say pack of cigs, beer, rent money etc to get an idea please

NW

Hi NW, I had it in my head that the money that George gave to Jeannie that night wasn't £10, but 10 shillings.

Samson and Crow's book confirms that it was 10 shillings.

[New Waterloo]

Just been looking at the Bank of England calculator (what money was worth then and now comparison)

Inflation calculator | Bank of England

I have been thinking. For 1969 £10 seems quite a lot for George Puttock to hand over to Jeannie for the taxi. According to them it would work out as £146 which doesn't seem right to me. None the less considering a pint of beer was about 30p I suppose £10 was a lot

Not really sure what that means. There would certainly be enough to buy some alcohol somewhere (more than that stated by Jeannie)

Can anybody give us an idea of costs of say pack of cigs, beer, rent money etc to get an idea please

NW

[New Waterloo]

Hi Cobalt yes agreed. I see what you are saying and even not being picked out doesn't override other evidence you may have. Professional curiosity would kick in and Beatty would be very interested in this man. He would probably speak to Jeannie afterwards and her negative result (but almost there) wouldn't close the case against him.

It would probably be that new ID parades with fresh stooges could be held with other witnesses, and there were several. Barrowland staff, clippie on bus, taxi driver. I suppose it could weaken any future court case but this was a murder. Its still a mystery why there seemed a lack of well common sense.

NW

[cobalt]

HS said:

Stonehouse to Wishaw is 17 miles. Stonehouse to Hamilton is just 7 miles.

The distance from Stonehouse to either Hamilton or Wishaw is about the same, around 8 miles. But his point about the three Moylans employees all living within 10 miles of each other is very likely correct. (Ten players from the Celtic football team which won the European Cup in 1967 were born within 11 miles of Glasgow.)

Beattie was very close to Jeannie and should really stay away from any official ID procedure I would think.

That's standard procedure these days and probably was back in 1969 as well. In my experience as a 'stooge' in an ID parade around the time of the BJ murders the parade was managed by an experienced station sergeant. No detectives involved in the burglary were seen by any of us. We had to give our names and addresses which were written down in the record, and sign that we had received payment.

Maybe Herlock has identified a problem of holding two ID parades around the same time. You obviously cannot show the witness the same 'stooges' as you did for the first parade since it would be obvious who the suspect actually was second time round. That might explain why Smith was not formally paraded- they didn't have enough suitable stooges.

Despite all the procedural requirements, I find it hard to believe that an experienced detective like Beattie would not have taken the opportunity to grill a suspect inside Partick Marine once he had been identified. His absence seems very odd.

[New Waterloo]

I have an understanding about ID parades but not from 1969. Please forgive me if most of you know this but they can be a bit hard to get your head round. ID parades are about positioning a suspect (somebody you have some suspicion about not merely a person who fits the description of an offender) into a group of ‘stooges’ who are paid a small amount of money and look similar to the suspect you have in custody. A positive ID adds weight to the evidence you already have obtained about your suspect.

Official parades are officiated by officers or staff who have not been involved in the investigation. This is to avoid suggestions that witnesses were led to pick a particular person or given information about the suspect in other words to avoid bias and corruption. Or accidental disclosures to witnesses.

it is not a case of lining up people who fit the description to see who is picked out. The idea is to see if the police suspect can be picked out of the line up.

casual ID procedures are just fishing trips, wandering around trying to find the offender. The danger is that if you show a photo of a person to a witness as a single photo and the witness says yes thats him my understanding is you lose the chance of a formal ID later. Why? Because you have shown a photo and this could influence the result in a subsequent official line up.

Beattie was very close to Jeannie and should really stay away from any official ID procedure I would think.

I will try and dig something ip about ID procedures in 1969. I may have just said a load of rubbish but I think its about right.

NW

[Herlock Sholmes]

We tend to view Smith and Murphy, McInnes' work colleagues, as a job lot- a bit like Siamese twins. So we assume they were both on the 2pm ID parade at Partick Marine. But it might have been, say, only Smith who was there and that the search party out in the Hamilton area was trying to locate Murphy: not McInnes. This allows Beattie to claim, accurately, that a suspect from the Hamilton area was put in front of Jeannie at Partick Marine and not picked out. Both Smith and Murphy must have been suspects since they worked at Moylans and had- I think this is accepted as fact- attended the Barrowland on the night in question. It would be interesting to know their full names, appearance and general work records.

Yet we have another problem. If the police had a strong enough suspect to put in front of Jeannie at 2pm then it seems bizarre for the chief investigating officer (Beattie) not to be overseeing the entire procedure. Why is he out on a wild goose in Hamilton when he has a strong suspect back at H.Q.?

Your opening point is a good one Cobalt, we all sometimes ‘assume.’ It got me thinking.


In the podcast we learn that Moylan’s employee Thomas Murphy had been pulled into Partick Marine but we aren’t told when. We’re told that his friend and colleague Len Smith was put in front of Jeannie that Sunday. Smith had to show Jeannie his teeth but he said that it wasn’t a formal ID. We’re also told that neither Murphy or Smith were asked about McInnes.

We know that Murphy worked at the Wishaw branch but we don’t know where he or Smith lived (or indeed which branch Smith worked at). So on that Sunday we have the police looking into two (possibly three) Moylan’s employees which might hint at the fact that they weren’t certain which one it was? The only plausible way that they could have alighted on Murphy, Smith and McInnes was the card.

Helen Puttock’s body was found at 7.25 on the morning of Friday 31st October. So when they went to Stonehouse in the morning we are talking 48 hours, maybe a little longer. It’s difficult to see how it could have taken 2 days to track down Smith and McInnes (and possibly Murphy too) I’ve only heard mention of two Moylan’s branches (Hamilton and Wishaw I think) so it wasn’t as if this was chain of stores with 15 branches and 100 employees to track down….so why the 48 hour gap?

Little appears to be known about the Moylan’s card but it’s been assumed that it was found at the scene. Might part of the delay have been down to when it was found - what if it wasn’t straight away? I may be pushing it but what if the search of her clothing was only a cursory one in the early stages? Might she have put the card in a pocket with a hole in the lining for example and it had fallen through, only to be found later? It’s nothing more than a suggestion but 48 hours seems a long time to track down three male employees of a two branch furniture store. Surely there can’t have been that many to eliminate from the investigation and this was a priority case so manpower wouldn’t have been an issue.

Stonehouse to Wishaw is 17 miles. Stonehouse to Hamilton is just 7 miles. Murphy worked at the Wishaw branch but we don’t know where Smith lived. Murphy might not have lived in Wishaw he could have lived near to Stonehouse for all that we know so it can’t be particularly unlikely that McInnes, Murphy and Smith lived within say 10 miles or so of each other. So is it possible that the four senior officers and a few junior one’s headed out to find all three men that morning? They perhaps called on Sandy first but McInnes wasn’t there so he gave them a few locations where he might have been. Then they tracked down the other two who were taken to Partick Marine to be seen by Jeannie but it can’t be impossible that they didn’t go together; especially they found it trickier to track one of the two down. Murphy got there for a proper ID parade and Jeannie said no. Then, some time later after they had tracked him down Smith arrived but rather than pulling the ID parade together again they just stood him in front of Jeannie who again said no. Against this suggestion is the fact that Jeannie only mentions an ID parade that day. But….this came from an interview 30 years after the event.

Is it then possible that, while they still hadn’t tracked down McInnes, Jeannie started to complain that she wanted to go home? The police at Partick phoned Hamilton station and spoke to Beattie who told them to let her go home and that they could bring her back in when they had tracked down McInnes. Did something them ‘convince’ them that he wasn’t their man so they never put him in front of Jeannie? Or….might they have shown McInnes to Jeannie the next day perhaps in a less formal, less favourable way, and she expressed her doubt and along with his family alibi it was considered enough?

[cobalt]

Is it possible that John Irvine McInnes was brought to Partick Marine and was actually in the building at 5.00pm, long after the main witness had left the building?

If he was ever brought there at all. Herlock and NW have helped try to piece together nagging doubts about whether McInnes was ever put on any official ID parade.

We tend to view Smith and Murphy, McInnes' work colleagues, as a job lot- a bit like Siamese twins. So we assume they were both on the 2pm ID parade at Partick Marine. But it might have been, say, only Smith who was there and that the search party out in the Hamilton area was trying to locate Murphy: not McInnes. This allows Beattie to claim, accurately, that a suspect from the Hamilton area was put in front of Jeannie at Partick Marine and not picked out. Both Smith and Murphy must have been suspects since they worked at Moylans and had- I think this is accepted as fact- attended the Barrowland on the night in question. It would be interesting to know their full names, appearance and general work records.

Yet we have another problem. If the police had a strong enough suspect to put in front of Jeannie at 2pm then it seems bizarre for the chief investigating officer (Beattie) not to be overseeing the entire procedure. Why is he out on a wild goose in Hamilton when he has a strong suspect back at H.Q.?

[barnflatwyngarde]

Something was bugging me about what Stoddart said after interviewing Beattie and I’ve just remembered what it was:

“On the Sunday preparations were made for an identification parade to be held at 11.00am, but it didn't take place until 5.00pm;”


And yet, in the podcast DC Brian Hughes said:

“ Now, this was quite significant as far as our inquiry was concerned because the date would have been Sunday, the 2nd of November, and they took him on the route at about two in the afternoon, I think it was, they took him. This goes back to this action when Joe Beattie and three others went out to Stonehouse because it appeared by looking at the statements that they went out round about at kind of morning time of the 2nd. Subsequently, at two o'clock in the afternoon on the Sunday, an identification parade was held where Jeannie viewed the people but didn't pick anybody out.”


Hughes and McEwan had seen the records but Stoddart hadn’t. He was only going on what Joe Beattie had told him (or wanted him to know perhaps?). So Beattie said that the ID parade was delayed because they had to track down McInnes’s and didn’t occur until 5.00. And yet, according to Hughes, going on police files, said that an ID parade in front of Jeannie took place at 2pm.



Neither am I Cobalt.

If the record of the ID lineup that McEwan and Hughes saw is an accurate representation of what happened, then Stoddart is wrong when he says the ID lineup took place a 5.00pm on the Sunday.

Stoddart tape recorded all his interviews with Beattie, so when he says that the ID lineup took place at 5.00pm on the Sunday, he is accurately reporting what Beattie told him.

Stoddart's book came out in 1979, a full ten years after the last murder, so I think it is fair to assume that Stoddart spoke to Beattie nine or ten years after the last murder.

I find it hard to believe that Joe Beattie remembered the exact time the Sunday ID lineup took place nine or ten years later.

Why would he not only remember that the ID lineup took place at 5.00pm on the Sunday, but also ensure through Stoddart that this important 5.00pm time entered the public record?

When Jeannie attended the 2.00pm interview at Partick Marine, John Irvine McInnes was at Hamilton Police Station, safely out the road.

Is it possible that John Irvine McInnes was brought to Partick Marine and was actually in the building at 5.00pm, long after the main witness had left the building?

The big story here is not the fact that Joe Beattie is lying, the big story here is why he is lying.

All I can think of is that Beattie was lying to protect the suspect that he and his three colleagues drove out to Lanarkshire to pick up.

That suspect was John Irvine McInnes.

Maybe it was because he was a relative of Beattie's old colleague Jimmy McInnes, or maybe there was some other pressing reason why John Irvine McInnes had to be shielded.

But shielded he was.

[New Waterloo]

Jeannie in the podcast (actress speaking words) seems pretty convincing to me. She states only one ID parade and I think she means official parade comprising a detained suspect at Partick. She says she welled up (about to cry) and that he fitted to description more than the others. We do not know if this was McInnes but although she doesn't positively ID the man she seems unsure of his hair colour.

What is very significant is that out of all the dozens and dozens of men who she looked at during casual ID procedures for many months. when the authorities said they were exhuming a body out of all those men she says that she thought it was the man she saw on this Partick ID. But discounts this as McInnes when she sees his photo in the paper stating he looks more like Castlemilk John.

Why isn't this ID in the police case records.

It could simply be that because it was negative it wasn't recorded.

If the man was arrested to be put on the ID parade it should be in custody records, or in officers note books but perhaps not in the investigation files held by the murder team and the later cold case team.

Perhaps it wasn't McInnes and that's why Beatty couldn't remember the name but perhaps it was Bible John!

NW

[Herlock Sholmes]

We are on tilling the same ground here HS and I hope it one day proves to be fertile. We need to know the following however:

Was McInnes in the Barrowland on the night of the Helen Puttock murder?
It's a crucial point in our putting him in the frame. We assume so, but the only evidence we have is Beattie's recollections from a decade after the crime. We simply do not know. Beattie could have been referring to a Moylans colleague resident in Stonehouse who was put on ID parade, difficult to find, and not identified. We can't assume Beattie is referring to McInnes; our only supporting evidence comes from his family members which is not good enough.

I'm still not convinced that McInnes was ever put on an ID parade in front of Jeannie. And if he was, and like Alphon in the A6 murder he was not picked out, his alibi should nonetheless have been hunted down to proving point. This does not appear to have happened in either case.

The Moylans card remains the Othello handkerchief of the murder. If not McInnes, then who? HS' comments on women's coats and cloakrooms are very convincing, so how did the card end up 12 miles away from the furniture warehouse in a part of west central Glasgow where the victim, reportedly impressed by the flash of a card at the Barrowlands, was found?

Something was bugging me about what Stoddart said after interviewing Beattie and I’ve just remembered what it was:

“On the Sunday preparations were made for an identification parade to be held at 11.00am, but it didn't take place until 5.00pm;”


And yet, in the podcast DC Brian Hughes said:

“ Now, this was quite significant as far as our inquiry was concerned because the date would have been Sunday, the 2nd of November, and they took him on the route at about two in the afternoon, I think it was, they took him. This goes back to this action when Joe Beattie and three others went out to Stonehouse because it appeared by looking at the statements that they went out round about at kind of morning time of the 2nd. Subsequently, at two o'clock in the afternoon on the Sunday, an identification parade was held where Jeannie viewed the people but didn't pick anybody out.”


Hughes and McEwan had seen the records but Stoddart hadn’t. He was only going on what Joe Beattie had told him (or wanted him to know perhaps?). So Beattie said that the ID parade was delayed because they had to track down McInnes’s and didn’t occur until 5.00. And yet, according to Hughes, going on police files, said that an ID parade in front of Jeannie took place at 2pm.

. I'm still not convinced that McInnes was ever put on an ID parade in front of Jeannie.

Neither am I Cobalt.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock and all - thanks to you and all for your responses and supportive comments; especially you, New Waterloo, too kind.

As far as anything is clear concerning the investigation of these murders, Joe Beattie and three other senior officers drove to Stonehouse seeking John McInnes. However, it not clear how many, if any, of their junior colleagues went with them.

Believing that they were on the cusp of getting their man, I take the point that Beattie and the other three would have been wary of spooking McInnes and so might not have wanted to storm in mob handed where they expected to find him. However, they would not have overlooked that a likely triple murderer might have turned violent and/or tried to escape. In addition, as mentioned earlier, interviews with family members and property searches would need to be promptly carried out once McInnes had been taken into custody. All this firmly points imo to a fairly sizeable number of junior officers being with the top four or at least lurking closely nearby.

Why then (as far as I know) was this never confirmed around the time or even in the intervening years by Stonehouse residents or others? Just maybe, things were not quite this way and Beattie plus his three colleagues never actually had a belief that McInnes was their man. Why not? Well, this is where my speculative stab (no bad taste pun intended) comes in. Although the name of John McInnes had undoubtedly come up in some way, I wonder if his police cousin Jimmy had strongly assured and virtually persuaded Beattie that John was incapable of murder. Beattie nonetheless realised that John McInnes would still need to be seen and spoken to before he could be ruled out. Consequently, partly as a favour to Jimmy, Beattie undertook to do this himself but insisted on being accompanied by three senior colleagues so as to pre-empt any future suggestions of a whitewash. IF the Stonehouse trip was made with the expectation of ruling John McInnes out, there would have been no need for the presence of any junior officers.

I am certainly not going to die in a ditch insisting that is what happened and why but the top four being accompanied by no junior officers (if that was the case) would appear to tally with John McInnes' alibi - whatever it was - being too readily accepted, the related at best half-hearted attempts to check from others on his possible involvement and the absence of documentation in police records.

Best wishes,
OneRound

Hi OneRound,

It’s a good suggestion and let’s face it, none of us know what exactly happened. Maybe it was something of a ‘delicate’ mission given the family links (I believe that there were three members of the McInnes’s family in the police force?) For my part though I think that the telling information is in what Charles Stoddart said after interviewing Joe Beattie: “On the Sunday preparations were made for an identification parade to be held at 11.00am, but it didn't take place until 5.00pm; the suspect had moved from Stonehouse and the police chased around Lanarkshire all day until he was finally traced at Newarthill, near Airdrie.”

It’s hard to imagine four such senior officers doing perhaps 4 or 5 hours of legwork around Lanarkshire trying to track down McInnes (when I say ‘track down’ I’m not implying that he was in any way on the run btw). Your point about no one mentioning any great police presence is a fair one but perhaps this was an example of them keeping this particular part of the investigation low key and discreet. I can perhaps imagine a plain clothes sergeant and Constable going to the door with the four senior officers and maybe a couple of other junior officers sitting in cars waiting?

What certainly makes me suspicious is that when Jim McEwan and Brian Hughes interviewed Joe Beattie in hospital in 1996 he recalled the trip over to Stonehouse but he couldn’t recall the name of the suspect. Really? How could it be the case that he and three other senior officers go over to Stonehouse to arrest and question his friend and colleague’s cousin, during the most high profile of cases, one that was the biggest of his career…and he couldn’t remember the suspects name? I don’t know what everyone else thinks but I struggle to accept that. I know that Beattie was in hospital at the time but the two detectives said that there was nothing wrong with his faculties (he had Crohn’s Disease) At the very least, for me, it shows that Beattie had been determined to keep the McInnes’s name out of it.