Bible John (General Discussion)

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hey Ms D!

Apparently the locker was reassigned to another attendant who was transferred to the community libraries, and it doesn't appear that the locker was reassigned after that.
So it appears that from the Police's point of view it was was worth a shot, but the intriguing thing to my mind is what was the catalyst for this move.

I suppose that it could have been nothing more than reacting to the points made in Jill Bavin-Mizzi's book. However if police reacted to every point made in the many true crime books published each year, they would have little time to do anything else.

We know that John Templeton was interviewed by police regarding the murders.

Is it possible that they had another look at the notes of that interview and found, or reinterpreted something from the interview that they thought was worth investigating further?

Re Herlock's query as to when Templeton left the Libraries Department, I don't know.

Templeton died aged 69 or 70 in 2015, so if he retired at the "normal" age of 65, it means that he would have left the department round about 2010.

The Templeton aspect of the case is interesting, and he does tick some of the boxes that we "think" we know about Bible John, however everything in Audrey Gillan's excellent podcast does point to a Lanarkshire connection.

I’ve already got the book listed for a re-read Barn. The thing that comes back to me, possibly more than anything, is this issue of the Moylan’s card which appears to have been the catalyst for McInnes’ entry into the case. I considered whether he was just a chat up merchant who happened to have given Helen Puttock his card at some point? The card wouldn’t have had his name on it but it would have triggered a visit to the shop. So what if it was Templeton after all and he was with Helen in the taxi but some time prior to that evening McInnes had tried chatting her up and gave her a card which the police found at the scene? Maybe the card that ‘John’ flashed at her in the club was something unconnected?

Certainly wouldn’t have been his library card though Barn.

[cobalt]

The police activity at the library locker has all the hallmarks of covering their backs. They could hardly have expected to find any usable DNA inside a locker (presumably metal?) after at least 14 years. But to impress the public, boost newspaper sales and increase sales of a real crime book it might be possible to exhume Templeton's body before discovering no firm conclusions can be reached. That will cost the public a pretty penny or two and leave a cloud over surviving family members but maybe inspire another suspect, so the process can be repeated again.

Bavin-Mizzi claims that BJ went out with the intent to kill so how does she square this belief with him giving his real name to Jeannie? And if she thinks the 1967 photo of Templeton (snazzy looking Glesca guy with slight sideburns, on the pull) resembles the iconic 1969 Bible John portrait (staid, shortish hair, rather aloof looking individual) then she was not around in the late 1960s. Her cultural compass is not up to the task.

What would be interesting to discover is why Templeton was questioned by police at the time.

[barnflatwyngarde]

Fascinating, Barn!

Thanks for that intriguing tidbit!

Presumably that same locker would have been used by hundreds of people in the intervening years though?

Don't get me wrong, it's worth a throw of the dice but I'm not sure how credible any findings would be after so long.

Hey Ms D!

Apparently the locker was reassigned to another attendant who was transferred to the community libraries, and it doesn't appear that the locker was reassigned after that.
So it appears that from the Police's point of view it was was worth a shot, but the intriguing thing to my mind is what was the catalyst for this move.

I suppose that it could have been nothing more than reacting to the points made in Jill Bavin-Mizzi's book. However if police reacted to every point made in the many true crime books published each year, they would have little time to do anything else.

We know that John Templeton was interviewed by police regarding the murders.

Is it possible that they had another look at the notes of that interview and found, or reinterpreted something from the interview that they thought was worth investigating further?

Re Herlock's query as to when Templeton left the Libraries Department, I don't know.

Templeton died aged 69 or 70 in 2015, so if he retired at the "normal" age of 65, it means that he would have left the department round about 2010.

The Templeton aspect of the case is interesting, and he does tick some of the boxes that we "think" we know about Bible John, however everything in Audrey Gillan's excellent podcast does point to a Lanarkshire connection.

[Ms Diddles]

I had a coffee yesterday (well tea actually) with some old work colleagues, and we were talking about our memories of working with John Templeton in the Mitchell Library.

My old boss told me that on the back of the Jill Bavin-Mizzi book on the case, the police turned up at the Mitchell Library and swabbed for DNA the locker that was used by John Templeton.

Damned interesting!

Fascinating, Barn!

Thanks for that intriguing tidbit!

Presumably that same locker would have been used by hundreds of people in the intervening years though?

Don't get me wrong, it's worth a throw of the dice but I'm not sure how credible any findings would be after so long.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I had a coffee yesterday (well tea actually) with some old work colleagues, and we were talking about our memories of working with John Templeton in the Mitchell Library.

My old boss told me that on the back of the Jill Bavin-Mizzi book on the case, the police turned up at the Mitchell Library and swabbed for DNA the locker that was used by John Templeton.

Damned interesting!

That is interesting Barn. How long since he’d used it?

[barnflatwyngarde]

I had a coffee yesterday (well tea actually) with some old work colleagues, and we were talking about our memories of working with John Templeton in the Mitchell Library.

My old boss told me that on the back of the Jill Bavin-Mizzi book on the case, the police turned up at the Mitchell Library and swabbed for DNA the locker that was used by John Templeton.

Damned interesting!

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’ve got a small grey hardback notepad that I’ve used in the past to make notes on the podcast along with any other thoughts or points that I’ve come across in books (after which I tend to gather the relevant stuff on my tablet) Looking back to one of the pages concerning the cold case detectives and the idea that Jeannie hadn’t actually seen McInnes on an ID parade I see that I’ve written in underlined capitols HOW DO THEY KNOW THIS?

[cobalt]

The exact wording from the cold case reported in The Times is:

''The original inquiry team said that she {Jeannie} had failed to pick anyone out, but it has now been established that McInnes was never included in an identity parade for her or for any other potentially important witnesses.''

I'm not sure how much faith to place in the wording in bold type. It seems there is no record of such an ID parade taking place but that is not quite the same thing as one never having taken place. The detectives working on the cold case acknowledged that paperwork was missing from the files, so I don't know how they could have 'established' what is claimed.

So far as I can gather two of the pieces of information that indicate McInnes was questioned in Hamilton on the Sunday (the police arriving at a relative's house, the Moyle's advertising card link) actually originate from his cousin Jimmy McInnes, the very man suspected of 'weeding' the files. Although I think there is paperwork to support the high ranking detectives heading off to Stonehouse.

Detectives like Muncie, Goodall, Dalglish and Beattie basked in their media image as crime busters so it's inconceivable they would have covered for a serial killer on the grounds of some personal friendship. Yet the failure to subject McInnes to an ID parade in front of a number of witnesses meant that he was never properly eliminated at the time, hence the later attempts at a DNA match.

[Herlock Sholmes]

To clarify: We now have two completely contradictory accounts of the McInnes ID parade.

According to Stoddart (1980) a man from Stonehouse was traced to Harthill (McInnes we have to assume) and an ID parade took place around 5pm on the Sunday. {Where?} Jeannie Langford failed to pick anyone out.

Yet cold case detectives announced in an article in The Times newspaper (2022) that McInnes avoided an ID parade, was hidden away from sight in Hamilton while his two co-workers were put on parade in Partick and naturally enough were not identified by Jeannie Langford. On being shown a photo of McInnes, admittedly many years later, she said she had never seen him before.{I appreciate that last part is ambiguous.}

So it remains unclear whether McInnes was ever put on an ID parade before Jeannie, never mind the other half a dozen witnesses that might have clarified matters.

There was no reason for high ranking detectives to swoop on Stonehouse unless they were intending to seize clothing from the suspect - something they could have delegated to local police anyhow.{Was this ever done?} McInnes should have been driven to Partick and processed there.

Frustrating isn’t the word.

It’s impossible to envision such high ranking officers swarming over to Stonehouse on the ‘off chance’ or for some piece of bog standard police work that uniform could easily have accomplished. The problem is that it’s difficult to avoid the impression that, at some point or other, something dodgy went on.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Cobalt,

Yes, you’d have thought that this incident, which we know definitely occurred, would have provided the police with a good focal point for jogging memories. Asking if anyone saw the incident would have been an obvious step and perhaps it happened but there is just no record of it? Again the issue of men and women not wanting partners to know where they were probably came into play to some extent but might we have expected someone at least to come forward? Not everyone there was married. I wonder if the location of the machine might have limited the amount of people that might have witnessed the scene? If it was located up a corner or somewhere that you would only see on the way to the loo or the cloakroom?

If Jeannie was the worse for wear that night and although we can’t prove it I personally wouldn’t dismiss it, might this have affected her ability to ID Bible John? A few drinks before and a bottle sneaked in would have done the trick to get someone from merry to drunk and I’m betting that some blokes sneaked something in to perhaps loosen the inhibitions of their dance partners, so perhaps Castlemilk was carrying something? We know that people aren’t always good at identifying faces. I don’t know but I certainly don’t want to dismiss Jeannie just because the spectre of drink has been raised.

[cobalt]

To clarify: We now have two completely contradictory accounts of the McInnes ID parade.

According to Stoddart (1980) a man from Stonehouse was traced to Harthill (McInnes we have to assume) and an ID parade took place around 5pm on the Sunday. {Where?} Jeannie Langford failed to pick anyone out.

Yet cold case detectives announced in an article in The Times newspaper (2022) that McInnes avoided an ID parade, was hidden away from sight in Hamilton while his two co-workers were put on parade in Partick and naturally enough were not identified by Jeannie Langford. On being shown a photo of McInnes, admittedly many years later, she said she had never seen him before.{I appreciate that last part is ambiguous.}

So it remains unclear whether McInnes was ever put on an ID parade before Jeannie, never mind the other half a dozen witnesses that might have clarified matters.

There was no reason for high ranking detectives to swoop on Stonehouse unless they were intending to seize clothing from the suspect - something they could have delegated to local police anyhow.{Was this ever done?} McInnes should have been driven to Partick and processed there.

[cobalt]

Hi HS,

I'd overlooked the cigarette machine dispute which really undermines Beattie's theory about BJ being a cold, premeditated killer. And yes, there must have been a few bystanders enjoying the drama of a man 'cruising for a bruising' from the bouncers. Maybe the fact there were a couple of women in the company spared BJ from being given the bum's rush out the front door. But bouncers never forget a face who has given trouble: they are as good witnesses as you will find. And yet we don't seem to have any record of bystanders giving an ID of the man involved in the incident. The cigarette machine incident might have been worth re-enacting in order to clarify witness statements.

We can also assume BJ was not a Catholic. When the women said they were Catholic he did not acknowledge any connection, something which even a lapsed Catholic or a Catholic who had abandoned the faith would surely have done. Maybe not much help given that still leaves around 70% of Glasgwegians who would have identified as Protestant but his conversation pointed to his having been brought up as part of a strict religious sect like the 'Wee Frees' or the Plymouth Brethren. Their numbers are very small. Were any enquiries made inside these organisations?

Glasgow is regarded as a football city with deep tribal loyalties but once again BJ places himself outside the common herd. In matters Rangers or Celtic he wryly described himself as an 'agnostic.' His taxi chat would have been designed to impress the two women but I can't see any reason to doubt the truth of what Jeannie recalled. He wasn't boastful. He quoted his father about the 'dens of iniquity' rather than proclaiming this as his own philosophy. He didn't claim the hole-in-one for himself but accredited it to a cousin. He said he'd once worked in a laboratory but stopped well short of claiming to be some kind of Einstein.

In summary, we didn't need some FBI profiler to narrow down BJ in terms of his religious background, social class, education or culture. Beattie and his team had all that provided to them within 48 hours.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Good post Cobalt. And there was the Moylan’s card of course. As you’ve pointed out we have a mystery in that it appears that we (and the police at the time) are in the position where the evidence is shouting ‘McInnes’ at us but being shouted back we get ‘but what about Jeannie.’ Then we have the cold case detectives being of the belief that the police (Joe Beattie in particular and Jimmy McInnes) were covering something up in connection with John Irvine McInnes. Unanswered questions abound..

What does it say about our killer that he went to Barrowland and picked up Helen Puttock even when his picture had been in wide circulation (including at the Barrowland - wasn’t there one on the wall there?) and that he draws attention to himself with the cigarette machine incident and then he goes on to kill when he knew that he could be identified by Jeannie, Castlemilk John, club manager, bouncer and the taxi driver to name just five (not to mention anyone standing around watching the cigarette machine incident as a bit of late night entertainment, expecting John to get knocked out perhaps?) Did he not intend to kill Helen or was he perhaps beyond caring? Even to an extent of being suicidal?

It’s a real pity that Castlemilk John never came forward (indicating the he was likely a married man who had told his wife that he was going for a pint with Fred at The Dog and Duck) And as you say, it would have been a delicate job for Beattie to have turned up the heat in a hunt for Castlemilk John. A sketch might have become confused with the BJ photo of course and made him even less willing to emerge.

[cobalt]

The image of Joe Beattie which emerges from Stoddart's book is not a very favourable one. Beattie believed that BJ was an intelligent man who set out with the intention of killing his victims. This does not tally with the man who socialised with Helen Puttock and her sister for over an hour in a crowded dance hall before taking a taxi home with them, dropping tantalising clues as to his background. Beattie's decision to consult Croiset, the Dutch mystic who had already failed to add anything of value to the disappearances of either the Beaumont children in Adelaide or Pat McAdam from Dumfries, was surely the triumph of hope over experience. By the time Beattie engaged Croiset's services, I think the medium had already drawn another blank in the Muriel Mackay kidnapping case. Stoddart's account of how Beattie was impressed by Croiset reads like a celebration of credulity.

Beattie had pretty good evidence to hand that he seems to have used carelessly. There were around half a dozen decent witnesses to the man seen with Helen Puttock but Beattie, so far as we are aware, only used one of them-Jeannie- to rule out John McInnes. We now learn that a bouncer and a taxi driver identified McInnes from a set of pictures shown to them years after the event. Maybe not so conclusive given that they might have been influenced by BJ photos appearing in media over the years, but apparently confirming that they never attended an ID parade where McInnes was in the line up. Or any ID parade for that matter.

Beattie never managed to flush out his other star witness: Castlemilk John. Obviously this was a delicate task and might have backfired had Beattie flooded Castlemilk with officers seeking out a man named John who was a slater by profession and who frequented the Barrowland. CJ might have clammed up on being 'outed' but he was still a far better bet than officers visiting hairdressers and tailors in the Glasgow area. Especially the former, given that the theory of BJ wearing a wig was allegedly proposed as an explanation for their failure.

The dental impression should have yielded some results- everyone in Scotland visits a dentist by the time they are 20- and there was the additional detail provided by Jeannie of a tooth missing as well. This area of the investigation has echoes of the Yorkshire Ripper case where police were looking for a bearded man with size 7 boots, probably a lorry driver, yet failed to recognise Sutcliffe when he came on their radar. Were police going through the motions instead of actively pursuing the dental enquiry line? Did Beattie limit enquiries geographically under the influence of Croiset?

Beattie had a murder victim found within hours, a blood group, a semen sample, a dental impression and a fair few witnesses. Add to that a suspect who revealed knowledge of a relative's golf hole in one, pubs in the Yoker area and of course the bible. Beattie was dealt a pretty decent hand and should have been able to play his cards better.

[barnflatwyngarde]

I wouldn't make much of the Sunday Post article- I'm not surprised no one wanted to put their name to it. It reads like an attempt by the police to draw a line under their failed enquiry by reassuring the public that BJ is no longer a threat.

The assumed killer left a 'cryptic note' which was hardly necessary: he could either have left no note (perhaps to spare his family) or just made a clear confession. I'm also unclear as to how 'the dates and places' match up; unless he kept a diary how would the police know where he was at any particular time? And the term 'mammy's boy' seems like it has been borrowed from Jeannie's impression of the man in the taxi. The 'religious fanatic' tag comes courtesy of the tabloid press. In short, along with the dubious claim that the man can't be named, the whole article is an exercise in fobbing off the reader with stereotypes.

Three points of interest though.

1.The article suggests the suspected BJ who committed suicide was known to the police in some way or another. So if they could piece together the times and places of this religious fanatic who was a mammy's boy after his death, why did they not do so when he was on their radar?

2. The article suggests that the suicide took place at the height of the enquiry which would at least explain why murders of this type ceased.

3. The suicide clearly cannot refer to John McInnes who was still alive at the time the article was published. Yet the Lanarkshire connection which pops up regularly in this case is referenced here as well.

I tend to agree with you cobalt.
The interesting thing to my mind is that we are getting tantalising hints that the murders have a Lanarkshire connection.
The "facts" presented in the Sunday Post article clearly don't point towards McInnes; he was still alive in 1979 and he was not an only child.

The Stoddart book is clearly based on the reminiscences of Joe Beattie, so why does a Lanarkshire connection suddenly raise its head in the last two pages of the book?

I confess that I simply do not know!