Bible John (General Discussion)

[barnflatwyngarde]

Stoddart comes across poorly from what I have read so far. Surely he should have been putting some of the points we have just made to Beattie when they spoke. I remarked earlier, I never trust writers who shower praise on a detective that has given them exclusive inside information on a cold case. (Martin Dillon who wrote the Shankill Butchers is a cautionary example of this.)

Stooddart says a suspect was identified 'immediately' yet we discover that two Moylan employees- neither of whom presumably match the description offered up by Jeannie- were being interviewed before McInnes ever entered the frame. So maybe Stoddart's choice of vocabulary is weak. Like HS I think the detail of McInnes' matching appearance, his marital status and his location could only have come to police attention through Smith and Murphy.

Hi cobalt,
In Episode 9 of the podcast "Bible John: Creation of a Serial Killer", Audrey Gillan says that a woman called Jessie, who sang in the Barrowland, was performing there on the Saturday after Helen's murder. Jessie gave Beattie and Valentine the name of a suspect who lived in the Hamilton area.
This information appears about 7 minutes into the podcast.

In episode 8 of the podcast we learn that in the early days of the Helen Puttock investigation a "Mrs Palka" gave the police the name of a man who was a regular at the Barrowland, who she presumably suspected.
Jimmy McInnes interviewed her, but there is no record of this interview in the case files.

We don't know if "Jessie and "Mrs Palka" are the same person, or whether we have two different people giving the names of two different suspects, or two people giving the same name of a suspect.

[cobalt]

Thanks Barn.

McInnes was clearly a solid suspect and the police moved pretty quickly to question him. So far, so good.

But there is so much missing as to how they became aware of him. I can't see how a singer at the Barrowland- 'Jessie'- would have much knowledge of his marital status or where he lived. The same applies to 'Mrs. Palka,' even if she had at some point danced with him. (We are assuming here that either or both of them were fingering McInnes.) And why did one or either alight upon McInnes given that the iconic Bible John portrait had not yet been produced? (I think there was an early photofit from the Jemima MacDonald murder on display in the Barrowland so maybe that was a factor.)

From the fragments available and Stoddart's opaque wording, 'He had been at the Barrowland, he had been at the Barrowland on the Thursday night' it seems McInnes was a fairly well known regular at the venue. Which would make it odd for him to go looking for a victim there a mere two months after the murder of Jemima MacDonald.