Bible John (General Discussion)

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’ve just ordered the Samson and Crow book Barn which I thought was unavailable for some reason. I’m not paying £65 for the Stoddart book though. I’ll wait til a cheaper copy becomes available.

[Ms Diddles]

Here is a link to a very interesting, if relatively brief at 25 minutes, documentary on Bible John.
What is particularly interesting that there are a few detectives who worked on the case talking about their experiences.

Also there is an interesting clip of Carmichael Lane, the scene of Pat Docker's murder, that shows that the body was located in a slight alcove next to a garage in the lane, this would give the killer a certain degree of privacy in which to commit the murder.

I think that this case requires lots of pulling together of little pieces of information wherever we can find them to try and understand it better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1OFEq1nvV8&t=1s

That's a great (and extremely atmospheric) documentary, Barn.

I've never seen it before.

Thanks for posting.

I noticed among all the evidence files, there was one entitled "Hair Pieces".

Was there some speculation that BJ wore a wig?

I'm just curious as I'd never heard this before!

[cobalt]

So why did four top ranked detectives descend on Hamilton police station? If McInnes was a person of interest he could have been driven to Glasgow by local police to be interviewed in the lion's den, so to speak. A 30 minute car journey inside a police car would unnerve many and make them less resistant to questioning. That's pretty much standard police procedure I think.

As I wrote earlier, I imagine that a group of high profile detectives converging on a provincial police station would spark more rumours than if the suspect had been interviewed in Glasgow. So I can't see this as a low key approach to spare the feelings of Jimmy McInnes.

Was the Stonehouse/Hamilton area significant because the detectives believed they could seize blood stained clothing and some items linked to the victim, Helen Puttock? Perhaps, but that action could have been delegated to local police officers.

To me it looks like these senior detectives were confident they had their man and were anticipating the photo opportunity of a lifetime as they made 'the pinch.' Such glory was not to be snatched from them by a Detective Inspector out in 'the sticks.' However something or somebody- maybe an alibi witness; a perfectly clean suit; - put a spoke in that particular wheel.

That still leaves us with the problem of why the detectives thought McInnes was such a strong suspect in the first place. And on top of that, why did they drop him like a hot potato?

[Ms Diddles]

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

Ha! That's always easily done!

We managed a couple of pints outside Websters before the obligatory downpour though, so it's a win!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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:

[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 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.

[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]

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.

[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.