Bible John (General Discussion)

[cobalt]

The delay in tracking down the Moylans Furniture staff might have been as simple as it being the Sunday morning when the body and card were discovered. The police were very alert in tracking down the taxi driver, to their credit, but maybe it took till the Monday and the shop opened until they could establish who carried advertising cards. But like you, I feel there is something more as to why McInnes was of interest.

As to why McInnes was apparently eliminated from the enquiry in 1969 we simply do not know. It's a real puzzle since 25 years later the Scottish legal system went to great lengths to try and connect him to the same crime. Exhuming bodies is very correctly a last gasp type of justice and usually avoided. So we can be confident that it was the DNA link that authorised the exhumation rather than advertising cards or missing documents in police files.

So why did McInnes walk from police custody back in 1969? I would like to know more about the testimony of his fellow workers, Murphy and Smith. Did the three go as a group to the Barrowland after their afternoon sales pitch (I am guessing that McInnes was in attendance), or have a casual arrangement to meet up? Did they alibi McInnes to the effect that all three left the Barrowland having failed to 'pull a bird' and confirm McInnes boarding a bus back to Stonehouse? Did they admit to handing out a few of their cards in the course of the evening to impress the local 'talent.'

We don't know who Helen Puttock danced with that evening. Yes, she picked up an interested party in BJ, but who was she dancing with beforehand? She must have been there for at least two hours before leaving from what I can deduce. Women will go up and dance with a friend if no one is showing any interest, then on the dance floor have a brief jig with some guy and sometimes that's the end of it. Maybe she got a card from one of the Moylans' group who simply couldn't remember her when questioned. Maybe she danced with McInnes briefly, he was eliminated by police as a suspect, and the decision was made to keep his name out of it due to family connections.

[New Waterloo]

I think Cobalt make a very important point about the fact that if there was evidence when they went to see McInnes he would have been charged. I don't think they could have made a joint decision not to. Madness not to.

I am going to a bit irritating again and return to the bite marks.

We are making a mistake by referring to the fact that McInnes had dentures fitted. Yes this is relevant in the later exhumation and later photographs when faces can change slightly do to the dentures.

If there were bite marks the police would have been aware of this very early. I cannot accept that the murder team were not aware of the bite marks as Beatty openly showed the teeth mold to the media.

I would suggest that maybe when they spoke with McInnes his teeth did not match the bite marks. I mean they could see his teeth when they spoke to him!

Doesnt mean he wasnt the killer though

NW

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think Cobalt make a very important point about the fact that if there was evidence when they went to see McInnes he would have been charged. I don't think they could have made a joint decision not to. Madness not to.

I am going to a bit irritating again and return to the bite marks.

We are making a mistake by referring to the fact that McInnes had dentures fitted. Yes this is relevant in the later exhumation and later photographs when faces can change slightly do to the dentures.

If there were bite marks the police would have been aware of this very early. I cannot accept that the murder team were not aware of the bite marks as Beatty openly showed the teeth mold to the media.

I would suggest that maybe when they spoke with McInnes his teeth did not match the bite marks. I mean they could see his teeth when they spoke to him!

Doesnt mean he wasnt the killer though

NW

We know from the podcast that when questioned during the cold case investigation PC MacGill (who was one of the two first officers on the scene) couldn’t recall anything about a bite mark (although he was recovering from a stroke at the time which admitted had affected his memory) You make a good point though NW. Might it have been the case that Jean had unintentionally exaggerated how much the man’s front teeth overlapped? Whatever was the case though their priority would surely have been to get this man in front of Jean? The podcast suggests the possibility that Jean never actually saw McInnes ( I intend to look at this part again this afternoon) She saw a picture years later and said that it was very close but she didn’t think that it was him but the photograph was taken a few years after the murder. Hannah, when he saw it, said that the man looked older in it so maybe this is what made Jean reject it?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I was thinking last night about the question of Pat Docker being naked when her body was discovered. As the killer took her clothes away this left us assuming that he must have had a car. A random killer might have carried a bag with him but not someone who had been to the Barrowland for a night of dancing so this suggests that the killer possibly/probably had a car/van. Naturally this has led us to question whether she killed by a different man to the one that killed MacDonald and Puttock, but is this really such an obstacle? There was an 18 month gap between the Docker and MacDonald murders so the killers own situation might have changed leaving him without a car, but perhaps we have another explanation that might not have been previously considered (unless I’ve missed, it which is possible)


On February 26th, Dalgleish made two appeals.

1. The driver of a Morris 100 Traveller which had stopped in Langside Avenue at the entrance to Queen’s Park late on Thursday 22nd. A young woman had got into the passenger street and the car had headed to Langside monument. They were never traced.
2. A white Ford consul which was seen turning into Overdale Street at 11.30pm that night. A man and a woman had driven slowly around the area.

Might the answer be simply that one of these cars was actually the killer’s and after this appeal he realised that his car had now become a liability? What if it was seen again at or near a future crime scene? So did he decide to leave the car at home if he couldn’t afford to get a new one?

[barnflatwyngarde]

This is where the issue of a police 'cover up' hits a brick wall.

We now know that Joe Beattie led a senior team of Glasgow detectives down to Hamilton police station where John McInnes had been taken. If they were confident he was, or even might be their man, it made no sense not to charge him with murder. A Masonic handshake and a warning of 'Don't do it again Irvine -otherwise it's Barlinnie!' would be utterly worthless and not only to their own careers. What would have happened if McInnes had, despite his promises, struck again? Where would that leave Beattie and his fellow detectives? Especially if any hint of their 'deal' emerged in public.

If, following the McInnes interview, he had been sectioned and sent to Carstairs mental hospital then that could be interpreted as a way of police sweeping the embarrassment under the carpet. But I can't see how they could take the risk of him striking again (he was at large for a further ten years) without doing untold damage to their own careers and the reputation of Glasgow police.

On the 2nd November, two days after Helen Puttock's body was found, four police officers went out to Stonehouse to interview John McInnes.

The officers were Det Supt Joe Beattie, Det Supt Tom Valentine, Det Insp William Campbell and Det Insp Tom Grant.

I don't know the exact make up of the original Bible John murder team, but if these four officers were in the team, then it is likely that these four policemen who went out to see John McInnes were the top ranking officers working on the case.

I personally think that there would be one Detective Superintendent leading the murder squad, and that man was Joe Beattie, so why was it necessary for Det Sup't Tom Valentine to tag along?

What was it about John McInnes that necessitated the four senior officers working the case to go and see him?

While these four officers were talking to John McInnes at Hamilton Police Station, suspicious in itself, Jeannie Langford was attending an ID parade at Partick Police Station.

So we are left with the scenario that while a viable suspect was in an ID parade at Partick, the top four senior officers were chatting to John McInnes at Hamilton, and after this incident, no mention of John McInnes was put on the case files.

[Ms Diddles]

This is where the issue of a police 'cover up' hits a brick wall.

We now know that Joe Beattie led a senior team of Glasgow detectives down to Hamilton police station where John McInnes had been taken. If they were confident he was, or even might be their man, it made no sense not to charge him with murder. A Masonic handshake and a warning of 'Don't do it again Irvine -otherwise it's Barlinnie!' would be utterly worthless and not only to their own careers. What would have happened if McInnes had, despite his promises, struck again? Where would that leave Beattie and his fellow detectives? Especially if any hint of their 'deal' emerged in public.

If, following the McInnes interview, he had been sectioned and sent to Carstairs mental hospital then that could be interpreted as a way of police sweeping the embarrassment under the carpet. But I can't see how they could take the risk of him striking again (he was at large for a further ten years) without doing untold damage to their own careers and the reputation of Glasgow police.

Again, this mirrors my own thoughts on the matter.

There are some aspects of the police investigation that just don't make sense to me, but (exactly as in the Ripper case) I find the notion of a cover-up just too far fetched.

There's simply too much at stake in such a high profile case, and as you say if the killer was known to the police but struck again, heads would have rolled and there would have been a huge public outcry.

All of that because Beattie wanted to protect his pal.

I'm honestly not sure that it would have been that much of a scandal if the perpetrator was revealed to be the cousin of a respected officer anyway.

A son or brother, perhaps.

The officer himself, certainly.

I really need to register to the podcasts though as I can't recall precisely what it was that felt "off" with the investigation.

[Ms Diddles]

inside shot of the derelict flat where Jemima MacDonald was murdered.

Uggghhh!

It's unspeakably sad to think of poor Jemima breathing her last in such squalor, Barn.

[Ms Diddles]

I keep coming back in my thoughts to the question ‘why was McInnes arrested?’ I realise that it was due to the Moylan’s card of course but the card itself couldn’t have identified John Irvine McInnes. What I mean by that is that it couldn’t have had his name on it or else the police wouldn’t have taken 2 days to get to him. So there must have been something else.

Could it simply have been that only x amount of Moylan’s workers would have had a card to give out and so the police had to work their way through those people eliminating them one at a time before they got to McInnes? This doesn’t seem likely according the the company boss who could only recall a very small number of his staff being spoken too and if this was the case then they would surely have got to Stonehouse in much less than two days.

Or is it more like that there was another factor which, along with the card, pointed to McInnes? I think Cobalt recently mentioned the two Moylan’s workers Thomas Murphy and Leonard Smith who were at a Glasgow furniture show together before heading to Sloane’s then the Barrowland. I also wondered if these two (or one of them) had mentioned spotting McInnes there that night. But, according to the podcast these two were never ‘asked’ about McInnes. I don’t know if the cold case detectives talked to these two or whether they were simply going on the records of the time but it does appear that the McInnes name hadn’t come up. Mickey Moylan could recall McInnes’s name being mentioned either so it looks, with what we have, that these two Moylan’s workers hadn’t seen McInnes at the Barrowland or in any way pointed a finger at him.

So the cold case detectives believe that the card led the police to Stonehouse but it seems to me that it was unlikely to have been the card alone. It seems unlikely to have been physical evidence therefore it looks like someone said something. But who was it and what did they say?

Could it have perhaps been something as banal as the fact that McInnes fitted the physical description and perhaps was known to frequent the Barrowlands?

It might have taken them a couple of days to speak to the managers at Moylans to get a list of employees who fitted the bill.

[barnflatwyngarde]

Uggghhh!

It's unspeakably sad to think of poor Jemima breathing her last in such squalor, Barn.

Yeah Ms D, it is, as you say, unspeakably sad.

I always make a conscious effort to remember that we are discussing real people's lives.
Even when I'm taking notes I always write their names out in full, never just initials.

I am glad that the contributors to this little thread seem to be giving the three victims the dignity they deserved, unlike the seemingly casual misogynistic comments in the police notes relating to their sex lives.

[Ms Diddles]

I'm not claiming that this advances our knowledge in anyway, but yesterday I was kicking about in the West End and decided to explore the route which John Templeton could have taken IF indeed he was the dishevelled guy who got off the bus at Gray St and (as per my favoured theory!) cut through Kelvingrove Park to reach his home in Melrose Gardens.

I didn't really learn anything new, but it did confirm that as I suspected you could go from Gray St to Melrose Gardens purely through the park without hitting any roads or residential streets until the last minute or so of your journey.

For the non-Glasgow contingent:

[Ms Diddles]

Oh! I am terrible at posting pictures on here and couldn't manage to edit my last post to give a description of the photos.

1) The entrance to Kelvingrove Park at the end of Derby St (which is parallel to Gray St).

2) The fountain. Just because it's nice!

3) The Kelvin River walkway from which you can cut right under Kelvinbridge / Great Western Rd.

4) A modern development on the route just before you reach Melrose Gardens. If you zoom in at the top of the picture amid the tree branches, you can see the row of tenements which leads straight to Melrose Gdns. It occurred to me that before the modern buildings were there it may have been possible to stick with the river walkway and emerge right next to those tenements.

5) Melrose Gardens.

It's a really easy, direct, mainly flat route. We did it in around 30 mins but were sauntering and pausing to look at and discuss aspects of the route.

A fit young guy walking briskly could have done it in around 15 / 20 mins, no problem.

[barnflatwyngarde]

Oh! I am terrible at posting pictures on here and couldn't manage to edit my last post to give a description of the photos.

1) The entrance to Kelvingrove Park at the end of Derby St (which is parallel to Gray St).

2) The fountain. Just because it's nice!

3) The Kelvin River walkway from which you can cut right under Kelvinbridge / Great Western Rd.

4) A modern development on the route just before you reach Melrose Gardens. If you zoom in at the top of the picture amid the tree branches, you can see the row of tenements which leads straight to Melrose Gdns. It occurred to me that before the modern buildings were there it may have been possible to stick with the river walkway and emerge right next to those tenements.

5) Melrose Gardens.

It's a really easy, direct, mainly flat route. We did it in around 30 mins but were sauntering and pausing to look at and discuss aspects of the route.

A fit young guy walking briskly could have done it in around 15 / 20 mins, no problem.

Nice photo's, and I see that you managed to capture a Glasgow puddle!

Re the time scales from Gray Street to Melrose Gardens, I think that your 15-20 minute estimate is spot on.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Could it have perhaps been something as banal as the fact that McInnes fitted the physical description and perhaps was known to frequent the Barrowlands?

It might have taken them a couple of days to speak to the managers at Moylans to get a list of employees who fitted the bill.

That makes sense Ms D but it still seems strange that those senior officers went to Stonehouse.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Oh! I am terrible at posting pictures on here and couldn't manage to edit my last post to give a description of the photos.

You’re a damned sight better than I am.

1) The entrance to Kelvingrove Park at the end of Derby St (which is parallel to Gray St).

2) The fountain. Just because it's nice!

3) The Kelvin River walkway from which you can cut right under Kelvinbridge / Great Western Rd.

4) A modern development on the route just before you reach Melrose Gardens. If you zoom in at the top of the picture amid the tree branches, you can see the row of tenements which leads straight to Melrose Gdns. It occurred to me that before the modern buildings were there it may have been possible to stick with the river walkway and emerge right next to those tenements.

5) Melrose Gardens.

It's a really easy, direct, mainly flat route. We did it in around 30 mins but were sauntering and pausing to look at and discuss aspects of the route.

A fit young guy walking briskly could have done it in around 15 / 20 mins, no problem.

Thanks for posting these Ms D. It’s always good to put pictures to location names.

[Ms Diddles]

That makes sense Ms D but it still seems strange that those senior officers went to Stonehouse.

Yes, I agree that it's strange.

The fact that they brought out the Big Guns implies that rightly or wrongly, they really thought they were onto something.

Could it have been something that the Moylans manager said in relation to McInnes that got their antennae pinging?

If so though, that would seem to contradict the idea that Mickey Moylan couldn't recall McInnes being mentioned.