Bible John (General Discussion)

[Herlock Sholmes]

Spot on Herlock!

The Don of the Scottish library world has come good!

I just need to assassinate his rivals at Scottish Museums and Art Galleries as payment!

For the purpose of clarification though, it was definitely a veggie haggis and not one of those horrible offal filled sheep intestine ones!

Isn’t veggie haggis considered the work of Satan in Scotland?

[Tom_Wescott]

I finished reading the book last night. Been a while since I saw that many notes and sources in a crime book! I thought it was fantastic. The author's approach was innovative and the amount of work she put into it was monumental. Is her John Templeton the real and true 'Bible John'? Perhaps. There's much to recommend him. However, it must be said that Bavin-Mizzi seems to take for granted that a) BJ actually said his name was Templeton. Jeanie said it was something like that and offered two alternative surnames, and b) That BJ was honest about his name. I saw in a documentary that some if not much of the detail Jeanie provided was whilst under hypnosis. I don't recall that being addressed in Bavin-Mizzi's book (I may have missed it) and that concerns me. Bavin-Mizzi also takes for granted that the DNA results from the 1990s are accurate and that the result which led to the wrong identification of McInness as Bible John wasn't somehow corrupted, as was quite common at the time. In other words, if there's no familial connection between Bible John and McInnes at all, then her John Templeton is out of the frame.

Bavin-Mizzi's explanation for how BJ knew his victims were menstruating was sensible and even likely, though it begs the question why the police, press, and Jeanie herself, didn't suggest the 'sanitary towel as outerwear' idea at the time. I like it, though. That's one of the most intriguing elements of the case for me. I don't know why Bavin-Mizzi didn't address this subject when speaking to Templeton's ex, June. Or if she did address it, why she didn't publish June's responses. Had she admitted to Templeton having had a fetish for or repulsion of menstruation, it would have greatly advanced her suspect.

The fact that Suspect Templeton married shortly before the murders began and was apparently happy in his marriage throughout the period of the murders and beyond is not helpful to the case against Templeton. Based on BJ's comments and actions, he appears to be a man who PRIOR to the murder had been cuckolded. That certainly doesn't kill the theory but it was something I was looking for in her case against Templeton.

All in all, I think Bavin-Mizzi has done some brilliant work and I consider it a shame her work wasn't published by a major publisher and given the wider market it deserves. Her John Templeton should probably be considered the leading suspect at this time, but it falls short of being a conclusive identification. I would assume Scottish authorities are getting some of the best forensic genealogists on this case? If so, it should be only a matter of time before they conclusively identify Bible John.

I wish we had more cold case studies like Bavin-Mizzi's. Truly impressive, excellent stuff.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[barnflatwyngarde]

I finished reading the book last night. Been a while since I saw that many notes and sources in a crime book! I thought it was fantastic. The author's approach was innovative and the amount of work she put into it was monumental. Is her John Templeton the real and true 'Bible John'? Perhaps. There's much to recommend him. However, it must be said that Bavin-Mizzi seems to take for granted that a) BJ actually said his name was Templeton. Jeanie said it was something like that and offered two alternative surnames, and b) That BJ was honest about his name. I saw in a documentary that some if not much of the detail Jeanie provided was whilst under hypnosis. I don't recall that being addressed in Bavin-Mizzi's book (I may have missed it) and that concerns me. Bavin-Mizzi also takes for granted that the DNA results from the 1990s are accurate and that the result which led to the wrong identification of McInness as Bible John wasn't somehow corrupted, as was quite common at the time. In other words, if there's no familial connection between Bible John and McInnes at all, then her John Templeton is out of the frame.

Bavin-Mizzi's explanation for how BJ knew his victims were menstruating was sensible and even likely, though it begs the question why the police, press, and Jeanie herself, didn't suggest the 'sanitary towel as outerwear' idea at the time. I like it, though. That's one of the most intriguing elements of the case for me. I don't know why Bavin-Mizzi didn't address this subject when speaking to Templeton's ex, June. Or if she did address it, why she didn't publish June's responses. Had she admitted to Templeton having had a fetish for or repulsion of menstruation, it would have greatly advanced her suspect.

The fact that Suspect Templeton married shortly before the murders began and was apparently happy in his marriage throughout the period of the murders and beyond is not helpful to the case against Templeton. Based on BJ's comments and actions, he appears to be a man who PRIOR to the murder had been cuckolded. That certainly doesn't kill the theory but it was something I was looking for in her case against Templeton.

All in all, I think Bavin-Mizzi has done some brilliant work and I consider it a shame her work wasn't published by a major publisher and given the wider market it deserves. Her John Templeton should probably be considered the leading suspect at this time, but it falls short of being a conclusive identification. I would assume Scottish authorities are getting some of the best forensic genealogists on this case? If so, it should be only a matter of time before they conclusively identify Bible John.

I wish we had more cold case studies like Bavin-Mizzi's. Truly impressive, excellent stuff.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

Thanks for this insightful analysis of Jill's book Tom.

I absolutely agree about the large number of sources and references in the book.
It is a major source of frustration re this case, that none of the few books published on the Bible John case have detailed sources and references where readers can check out assertions made by the authors.

I communicated with Audrey Gillan re Bavin-Mizzi's book, and Audrey made the, not entirely unfair, comment that Bavin-Mizzi's basic premise that the killer gave his real name to Helen Puttock and her sister Jean was "a bit of a stretch."

However it is the other tantalising bits of information that Jill lays out that means that we cannot dismiss John Templeton as a viable suspect:

• The gap in the teeth.
• Templeton's flat being close to where the disheveled man got off the bus.
• His upbringing in the religious house of his foster parents.
• The fact that he had an adoptive sister (the killer made reference to a sister in the taxi with Helen and Jean)

I don't know if John Templeton was the killer, there is just so much linking John McInnes to the case that I can't quite get my head round.
The revelations that Audrey Gillan detailed in her excellent podcast raise so many questions re McInnes that can't be brushed aside.

Ms Diddles is going to a talk by Jill Bavin-Mizzi in June, I am sure that Ms D will ask quite a few searching questions and report back.

Thanks once again Tom for this excellent contribution.

Frustratingly, the definitive book on this fascinating case has still to be written.

[Tom_Wescott]

It's always a bit of a stretch, isn't it? You could say she was speculating, but it's responsible speculation. Her innovation was then turning to the DNA evidence fromt he 1990s and seeing where/how that may guide her. What Bavin-Mizzi has done right is she spent a lot of time becoming familiar with the case, its inner workings and nuances, and then she used what insight she'd developed to generate her own leads, which she then followed up, not knowing where they may lead or if they'd lead anywhere. In her mind, they did. I can't commend her enough for that. If nothing else, she gave us a very interesting book.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[cobalt]

Tom has identified a couple of areas where he feels more might have been gleaned from John Templeton's former wife. I don't have a copy of the book so I am not sure if the former Mrs. Templeton is happy to bury/praise her former husband or to adopt a neutral stance. However there are two other aspects that I think she might have been able to shed some light on.

My impression of Templeton is very dependent on information supplied on this site by Barn, who had actually worked briefly alongside him in a public library. Templeton seems to have been quite a dapper, punctilious individual and unlikely to have finished off a night out on the town by brawling in the streets. So if this recently married man came home in a dishevelled state during the early hours of the morning then I think his wife would have remembered that. She might have had no reason to suspect him of involvement at the time but the Helen Puttock murder was a kind of landmark in terms of dates and she may, in hindsight, have made a connection years later.

The second area relates to a major weakness in the 'Templeton as BJ' theory: I don't think the author has any evidence that Templeton ever crossed the threshold of the Barrowland Ballroom. We know that he met his wife at the Majestic Ballroom and of course he was hardly likely to tell his wife if he was later 'guesting' at the Barrowland. But again, going by Barn's recollections, the Barrowland seems a bit downmarket for Templeton. Hobnobbing with the likes of McInnes and Tobin hardly seems his scene. His wife might have been able to offer some general information about the types of places he favoured and the company he preferred to keep.

My last point is unconnected to the above. If Templeton was the killer then the Moylan's Furniture Store advertising card is a red herring. It might well be. We know there were three members of that company on the dance floor the evening of Helen Puttock's murder and they could have been dishing out cards quite liberally. (Should the police not have established whether this was the case?) Helen herself might have been handed one and put it in her handbag, or even picked one up that was lying on a table.
However the fact that a Moylan's card was reportedly discovered at the scene of the murder points more to it being dislodged from a pocket during a struggle, and that was unlikely to be Helen's coat pocket since I assume she would have left her coat in the cloakroom before going off to dance. (Again, I am not sure if this has been established.) So more likely it was either handed to her as she was collecting her coat before leaving, or it came from the jacket of her killer.