Bible John (General Discussion)

[Herlock Sholmes]

I seem to remember it was after the release of the Lennox Patterson image when the police were swamped with information and following up on hundreds of leads, but then my memory is completely fallible, so treat that with caution!

All I was thinking was if the cards had been circulated say, after MacDonald, could the card that BJ showed Helen in the taxi have been one. I know, unlikely. This case gets you going down strange avenues.

[cobalt]

Stoddart's book was published in 1980, so given that McInnes committed suicide in April 1980 it is unlikely Stoddart was aware of this when he sent his book to the publisher.

This means that Joe Beattie (presumably the source for the Sunday Post article in 1979) was slightly psychic since he sensed that Lanarkshire suspects would commit suicide after leaving cryptic notes.

[Ms Diddles]

To save me having to search does anyone know when the ‘I am not Bible John’ cards were first issued?

I seem to remember it was after the release of the Lennox Patterson image when the police were swamped with information and following up on hundreds of leads, but then my memory is completely fallible, so treat that with caution!

[Ms Diddles]

Could Jimmy McInnes have ‘invested’ in the HMO to top up his pension pot? There’s so much mystery in this case Ms D we could create a conspiracy/cover-up a day and who knows, one of them might contain a grain of truth. Interesting stuff though. It’s always good to hear from people with local knowledge, even if it’s only rumour or speculation.

I guess it's not beyond the realms of possibility that Jimmy McInnes was the landlord of the HMO.

I wouldn't read too much into this.

As you say it's merely rumour and speculation, but it's interesting in it's own right as it gives an indication of how the neighbours were thinking shortly after the murders.

Yeah, I should have asked my pal if he still has the card.

I'd imagine it's probably been lost to the mists of time, but it would be interesting to see one.

I'll ask him next time we meet up.

[Herlock Sholmes]

To save me having to search does anyone know when the ‘I am not Bible John’ cards were first issued?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Just for anyone that hasn’t read the book this is from Glasgow Crime Fighter: The Les Brown Story.

Brown was a Glasgow police officer and I have to admit that I haven’t read the whole book yet just the small Bible John content but having a quick skim it looks like a lively read and a trawl through some interesting Glasgow characters (perhaps none that you’d want accompanying you to a poetry reading though) He writes:


Joe was of the opinion that Helen Puttock's sister was the key witness since she had spent time in Barrowland in the company of the man who killed her sister. I was not so sure that this was the right way to go. Instead, I thought we should be concentrating on women who may have been picked up by Bible John but not killed by him. However, Helen's sister was taken all over town and asked to be on the lookout for guys who looked like the man she shared a taxi with on the night of the murder. It didn't work.

Because of the poster and the press interest, it seemed, at times, that the whole of Glasgow was on the hunt for the killer. Occasionally, possible suspects were picked up but they were all eliminated. One of them was a man called John McInnes but Helen's sister did not pick him out at an identity parade and other witnesses who had the chance to pick him out also failed to finger him. He committed suicide in 1980 aged forty-one. The rumours about him lingered on till the late nineties and only then, after his body had been exhumed and DNA tests carried out, was it finally confirmed that he was not the infamous Bible John.

This puts some of the other ‘findings’ of the killer into context – including a couple of odd experiences I had myself. The Bible John case filled the minds of the police for years after the killings but life – or, in the case of the Serious Crime Squad, death – went on as usual.

Two years after the Puttock killing, a colleague and I were driving eastwards along Argyle Street when we spotted a man and a woman in heated discussion. For some reason, we decided to talk to them and we followed them into George Square. We separated them and I spoke to the woman who said she only knew her companion as John and he had just picked her up at the Barrowland. The man gave a name and address – 28 St Andrew's Street in the city centre, opposite the old police office. The woman was allowed to take the bus home. The man went to the Central with us. The address he had given us was false. Back at the office, I handcuffed him to a radiator – something he took badly. This time he gave an address in the Gorbals.

I went there, little thinking that my days at the Weirs plant in Cathcart would be brought back to me vividly. The man we had lifted stayed there with his elderly mother. She asked me right out if I thought her son was Bible John. I replied, ‘That's what we're looking at.’ The old woman said, ‘He could be – he regularly goes to the Barrowland.’ She went off to make a cup of tea and, as she did so, I had a look, as you do, at the photographs on the mantelpiece and got a shock – I recognised a man as Bob who had been an attendant in the power house at Weirs in my days there. When the mother returned I asked about Bob, her husband, and she told me he had accidentally gassed himself in the kitchen. I found it hard to believe. He had been in the Royal Navy and during his service he had been torpedoed twice so I just did not think he was the sort of man to do away with himself. Odd.

I headed back to the office and, on the way, one of those amusing incidents that could only happen in Glasgow occurred. When I reached the CID car in the street, I found a man in it. He was smelling strongly of whisky and he was trying to start the engine with a key. I opened the door and asked if there was any chance of a lift. ‘Sure, mate,’ he replied, saying that it wasn't, however, his car and he couldn't start it. ‘Here, I'll try my key,’ I said and he popped into the passenger's seat. I drove to the Central Police Office where he got the chance to sleep off his whisky!

I turned my attention back to the suspect and he asked how I had got on with his mother. I told him there had been no problem. I also said I thought he might be interested to know that I had once worked with his father. He had other things on his mind. ‘Do you think I'm Bible John?’ he asked. ‘That's up to you,’ I responded. ‘No, that's up to you, Mr Brown,’ was his reply. It was now 3 a.m. and I contacted Joe Beattie. Joe arrived looked him up and down and said that he ‘was the nearest yet’ but, according to Joe Beattie, he wasn't the serial killer.

I wonder, however, if another incident was more important. Many years later, in the nineties, I was having a chinwag with Detective Inspector Bryan McLaughlin when the subject came round to Bible John. Brian bowled me over by saying he thought he once had him in cuffs but he had escaped. Intrigued, I got him to tell me the tale.

On duty as a beat cop in the Barrowland area, Brian came upon a man urinating in the open in a nearby lane. Without warning, the man ran away and Brian gave chase. He caught up with the man in a backcourt and the man picked up a brick to strike him but Brian felled the guy with a blow from his baton. He hit him such a crack that he required medical attention and the mystery man was taken to the Royal Infirmary in handcuffs. The doctor insisted that he would not treat the man unless the cuffs were removed. Despite Brian telling him what would happen if the handcuffs were removed, they took them off anyway. And, just as Brian had predicted, the mystery man whacked the doctor and ran out the door. Brian thought that the guy would have made a good Bible John suspect. It gets stranger. I asked if he had got the man's name. He said that he had but it and the address he gave had turned out to be phoney. I asked what address he had given and I was stunned when he replied, ‘28 St Andrew's Street.’ It still makes me wonder what if …

[Herlock Sholmes]

That is interesting Ms D.

I know the Langside area pretty well, and yes, locals would not be happy if they had a house of multiple occupancy in their midst.
Langside has always affected a slight air of gentility.

I've just finished Stoddart's "Bible John: Search for a Sadist", and on the last two pages is an interesting little snippet.

It has been often reported, although I can't recall any of the sources at the moment, that when John McInnes committed suicide he left a cryptic note, that some police sources thought alluded to the murders.

Stoddart says "One such story appeared in the Sunday Post of September 9 1979 concerning a Lanarkshire man who committed suicide, leaving a cryptic note which some police linked to the murders of ten years before." (My Emphasis)
(page 137-138)

John McInnes died on 30th April 1980, so the suicide note left behind by a Lanarkshire man in 1979 was clearly not him.
So who the hell was it?

Bearing in mind that Stoddart had, apparently, had several meetings with Joe Beattie while writing the book, is there a possibility that if Beattie was engaged in a
cover-up of some sort regarding John McInnes, he threw Stoddart a titbit of information intimating that the Police had harboured some suspicions about a Lanarkshire man who killed himself in 1979?

With this snippet of information in the public domain, it could seem to weaken the case against McInnes, because he died a year later.

The more I seem to learn about this case, the less I seem to know.

Interesting (and infuriating) stuff Barn. I guess that we wouldn’t still be interested if there were no mystery but this case certainly has more than it’s fair share.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I'm never sure exactly how much value is to be placed on local lore, but I always find old stories from people who were there fascinating nonetheless.

With that in mind, I was out yesterday with a bunch of friends from my old work, a couple of whom had been alive at the time of the BJ murders and I recalled from conversations years ago that one had a connection to the first murder scene.

My old boss remembers the case well.

He had been a regular at the dancing in those days (although never at the Barrowlands) and as a tall guy of around the right age and appearance had been questioned briefly and issued with one of those "I am not Bible John!" cards.

We discussed the term "agnostic" in relation to football, and he was 100% certain that he had never heard it used in that context (and he's a Partick Thistle fan, so the epitome of an Old Firm agnostic!!).

Secondly another of my friends had, it turned out moved into 15 Cathkin Road (which backs directly into Carmichael Lane) a couple of years after the murder of Pat Docker.

Her neighbours had warned her not to go into the lane at night and apparently it was a well-known "lovers lane" at the time.

She said she caught an eyeful when looking out back on several occasions whilst living there!

Interestingly she told me that at the time of the murder (and later while she lived there, the house next door (no. 17) was a kind of HMO made up of lots of small bedsits and there was a feeling among the neighbours that there were some dodgy goings on there.

TBH that may just be a bit of neighbourhood snobbery as it's quite a well-to-do area.

The guy who owned the HMO came from what she described as "the same small Lanarkshire town where the suspect that they exhumed in the 90's came from".

She said Strathaven, and when I said that McInnes was from Stonehouse, she wasn't sure exactly which of the two it had been.

The two are in very close proximity anyway.

When the McInnes story broke in the 90's she had wondered if there was any connection between McInnes and the guy who owned the (allegedly dodgy) HMO.

Make of that what you will!

It’s a pity that your friend didn’t keep his ‘I am not Bible John’ card as I image that true crime collectors might be keen on owning one and willing to pay. I’d certainly like to see one out of curiosity.

Could Jimmy McInnes have ‘invested’ in the HMO to top up his pension pot? There’s so much mystery in this case Ms D we could create a conspiracy/cover-up a day and who knows, one of them might contain a grain of truth. Interesting stuff though. It’s always good to hear from people with local knowledge, even if it’s only rumour or speculation.

[Ms Diddles]

That is interesting Ms D.

I know the Langside area pretty well, and yes, locals would not be happy if they had a house of multiple occupancy in their midst.
Langside has always affected a slight air of gentility.

I've just finished Stoddart's "Bible John: Search for a Sadist", and on the last two pages is an interesting little snippet.

It has been often reported, although I can't recall any of the sources at the moment, that when John McInnes committed suicide he left a cryptic note, that some police sources thought alluded to the murders.

Stoddart says "One such story appeared in the Sunday Post of September 9 1979 concerning a Lanarkshire man who committed suicide, leaving a cryptic note which some police linked to the murders of ten years before." (My Emphasis)
(page 137-138)

John McInnes died on 30th April 1980, so the suicide note left behind by a Lanarkshire man in 1979 was clearly not him.
So who the hell was it?

Bearing in mind that Stoddart had, apparently, had several meetings with Joe Beattie while writing the book, is there a possibility that if Beattie was engaged in a
cover-up of some sort regarding John McInnes, he threw Stoddart a titbit of information intimating that the Police had harboured some suspicions about a Lanarkshire man who killed himself in 1979?

With this snippet of information in the public domain, it could seem to weaken the case against McInnes, because he died a year later.

The more I seem to learn about this case, the less I seem to know.

Interesting stuff, Barn!

That just adds yet another layer of mystery!

My first thought on reading your post was to wonder whether Stoddart could have got the year of the Sunday Post article wrong.

Or could Beattie have told him the wrong year to muddy the waters a bit (although I would have thought that Stoddart would have checked the source before publishing)?

I suppose Lanarkshire is a relatively large county, so it's possible that there was another suspect who committed suicide a year earlier, so on reflection it's perhaps not as crazy a coincidence as it first appears.

Intriguing!

[barnflatwyngarde]

I'm never sure exactly how much value is to be placed on local lore, but I always find old stories from people who were there fascinating nonetheless.

With that in mind, I was out yesterday with a bunch of friends from my old work, a couple of whom had been alive at the time of the BJ murders and I recalled from conversations years ago that one had a connection to the first murder scene.

My old boss remembers the case well.

He had been a regular at the dancing in those days (although never at the Barrowlands) and as a tall guy of around the right age and appearance had been questioned briefly and issued with one of those "I am not Bible John!" cards.

We discussed the term "agnostic" in relation to football, and he was 100% certain that he had never heard it used in that context (and he's a Partick Thistle fan, so the epitome of an Old Firm agnostic!!).

Secondly another of my friends had, it turned out moved into 15 Cathkin Road (which backs directly into Carmichael Lane) a couple of years after the murder of Pat Docker.

Her neighbours had warned her not to go into the lane at night and apparently it was a well-known "lovers lane" at the time.

She said she caught an eyeful when looking out back on several occasions whilst living there!

Interestingly she told me that at the time of the murder (and later while she lived there, the house next door (no. 17) was a kind of HMO made up of lots of small bedsits and there was a feeling among the neighbours that there were some dodgy goings on there.

TBH that may just be a bit of neighbourhood snobbery as it's quite a well-to-do area.

The guy who owned the HMO came from what she described as "the same small Lanarkshire town where the suspect that they exhumed in the 90's came from".

She said Strathaven, and when I said that McInnes was from Stonehouse, she wasn't sure exactly which of the two it had been.

The two are in very close proximity anyway.

When the McInnes story broke in the 90's she had wondered if there was any connection between McInnes and the guy who owned the (allegedly dodgy) HMO.

Make of that what you will!

That is interesting Ms D.

I know the Langside area pretty well, and yes, locals would not be happy if they had a house of multiple occupancy in their midst.
Langside has always affected a slight air of gentility.

I've just finished Stoddart's "Bible John: Search for a Sadist", and on the last two pages is an interesting little snippet.

It has been often reported, although I can't recall any of the sources at the moment, that when John McInnes committed suicide he left a cryptic note, that some police sources thought alluded to the murders.

Stoddart says "One such story appeared in the Sunday Post of September 9 1979 concerning a Lanarkshire man who committed suicide, leaving a cryptic note which some police linked to the murders of ten years before." (My Emphasis)
(page 137-138)

John McInnes died on 30th April 1980, so the suicide note left behind by a Lanarkshire man in 1979 was clearly not him.
So who the hell was it?

Bearing in mind that Stoddart had, apparently, had several meetings with Joe Beattie while writing the book, is there a possibility that if Beattie was engaged in a
cover-up of some sort regarding John McInnes, he threw Stoddart a titbit of information intimating that the Police had harboured some suspicions about a Lanarkshire man who killed himself in 1979?

With this snippet of information in the public domain, it could seem to weaken the case against McInnes, because he died a year later.

The more I seem to learn about this case, the less I seem to know.

[Ms Diddles]

I'm never sure exactly how much value is to be placed on local lore, but I always find old stories from people who were there fascinating nonetheless.

With that in mind, I was out yesterday with a bunch of friends from my old work, a couple of whom had been alive at the time of the BJ murders and I recalled from conversations years ago that one had a connection to the first murder scene.

My old boss remembers the case well.

He had been a regular at the dancing in those days (although never at the Barrowlands) and as a tall guy of around the right age and appearance had been questioned briefly and issued with one of those "I am not Bible John!" cards.

We discussed the term "agnostic" in relation to football, and he was 100% certain that he had never heard it used in that context (and he's a Partick Thistle fan, so the epitome of an Old Firm agnostic!!).

Secondly another of my friends had, it turned out moved into 15 Cathkin Road (which backs directly into Carmichael Lane) a couple of years after the murder of Pat Docker.

Her neighbours had warned her not to go into the lane at night and apparently it was a well-known "lovers lane" at the time.

She said she caught an eyeful when looking out back on several occasions whilst living there!

Interestingly she told me that at the time of the murder (and later while she lived there, the house next door (no. 17) was a kind of HMO made up of lots of small bedsits and there was a feeling among the neighbours that there were some dodgy goings on there.

TBH that may just be a bit of neighbourhood snobbery as it's quite a well-to-do area.

The guy who owned the HMO came from what she described as "the same small Lanarkshire town where the suspect that they exhumed in the 90's came from".

She said Strathaven, and when I said that McInnes was from Stonehouse, she wasn't sure exactly which of the two it had been.

The two are in very close proximity anyway.

When the McInnes story broke in the 90's she had wondered if there was any connection between McInnes and the guy who owned the (allegedly dodgy) HMO.

Make of that what you will!

[Ms Diddles]

Well talk about coincidences (when do they become more than that) Just started to listen again to the Podcast. (episode the Witness) and quite near the beginning Audrey states that the interview takes place in 1996 at Jeans home in the village of Dreghorn which if I have got it right is about 3 miles from the centre of Irvine. Maybe I have the wrong Dreghorn. But it looks to be virtually part of Irvine.

I have to say, and I know people are different but if my sister had been murdered then the last place I would want to set up home is where the main suspect BJ said in the taxi that that is where he took family holidays. Well each to their own. But I have mentioned it just in case it means something more.

Helens handbag turns up fairly close to Irvine, John McInnes' is actually called Irvine and BJ said he had his holidays there. Now Jean who was in the taxi lives just outside Irvine in 1996. I would imagine I am looking for something that isn't there. Probably just a nice area.

NW

Hi NW!

That will be the correct (if, I always think, rather unromantically named) Dreghorn!

To be honest it was so common for Glasgow folk to have a holiday on the Ayrshire coast, that I don't personally see anything significant in all of this.

Saltcoats and Ayr were likely the most popular destinations, but Irvine, Troon and Maybole would have been fair game too, presumably right up to Largs.

It could be that Jean just wanted to retire to the seaside as many folk do.

It's fascinating nonetheless, but in my humble opinion a red herring!

[New Waterloo]

Well talk about coincidences (when do they become more than that) Just started to listen again to the Podcast. (episode the Witness) and quite near the beginning Audrey states that the interview takes place in 1996 at Jeans home in the village of Dreghorn which if I have got it right is about 3 miles from the centre of Irvine. Maybe I have the wrong Dreghorn. But it looks to be virtually part of Irvine.

I have to say, and I know people are different but if my sister had been murdered then the last place I would want to set up home is where the main suspect BJ said in the taxi that that is where he took family holidays. Well each to their own. But I have mentioned it just in case it means something more.

Helens handbag turns up fairly close to Irvine, John McInnes' is actually called Irvine and BJ said he had his holidays there. Now Jean who was in the taxi lives just outside Irvine in 1996. I would imagine I am looking for something that isn't there. Probably just a nice area.

NW

[New Waterloo]

Thanks for that info Cobalt does paint a picture in my mind. Old holidays at a set time. In Norwich where I live there were dozens of shoe factories right up to the 1990s. All gone. They would shut down for factory fortnight. In August I believe. Trains to Great Yarmouth would be packed in the 1950s and 1960s.

if BJ had said we used to have holidays in Saltcoats then I think it wouldnt be that significant (armed with your info) but Irvine sounds like somewhere you would holiday with a relative. Apparently McInnes had relatives in Ayshire through his mothers side!! (podcast) Although it doesnt mention Irvine but some village.

NW

[cobalt]

Before cheap Spanish holidays took off in the 1960s it was common for Glaswegians to head for the west coast; Blackpool was overwhelmed with Glasgow visitors in the 1960s during what was known as the Glasgow Fair: a two week holiday at the end of July. I would imagine Saltcoats was pretty popular back in the day but don't know if that would apply to Irvine.

The handbag belonging to Helen Puttock that was found on Saltocats beach is a very curious affair. We don't know when she lost it, so I will guess it was when she was on her Glasgow Fair holiday in late July. It must have been easily identified as hers by personal belongings inside so could have been returned to her during the following 3 months. Yet apparently it lay undiscovered until about 3 days after she was murdered, judging by the news article posted last week.

Women rarely 'lose' handbags I would have thought: they are almost umbilically attached to them. They are more likely to be stolen?