Scotland's Serial Killers E-Book

Blake Hamilton

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 184

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Cannibals, necrophiles, spree killers, axe wielding maniacs, violent thieves, gunmen, child killers, arsonists, deadly suave conmen, medical professional killers, graverobbers. Here are the worst and most dangerous serial killers ever to come out of Scotland. Find out more about some of Scotland's worst and most notorious murderers in Scotland's Serial Killers.

Leseprobe

Scotland's Serial Killers

Hamilton Blake© Copyright 2023 Hamilton Blake

ContentsBible John Robert BlackIan Brady Burke & HareThomas Neill Cream Minnie DeanDonald ForbesArchibald Hall Lewis Hutchinson The Legend of Sawney BeanPeter Manuel Archibald McCaffertyRobert MoneDennis NilsenColin NorrisAngus SinclairJohn Thompson Peter TobinBIBLE JOHNBible John is an unidentified serial killer who allegedly murdered three young women between 1968 and 1969 in Glasgow. As we shall see though, not everyone is convinced that one single killer was responsible for the three murders. The case still remains shrouded in some degree of mystery. Bible John is believed to have met the victims at the Barrowland Ballroom - a famous dance hall and music venue in the city. This was a popular place to go in the late 1960s if you wanted to dance and perhaps get lucky with a member of the opposite sex. The first victim Patricia Docker showed evidence of blunt force trauma to the head before she was strangled. There was no sign of sexual assault though. This wasn't the case with the second victim Jemima McDonald - who was raped and strangled. The police took a while to deduce the similarities in these two murders but they eventually realised that the same killer was probably responsible. The final victim was Helen Puttock. Puttock was raped and then strangled with her own stockings. This last murder was slightly different from the others in that the victim had begun the evening in a pub rather than go straight to the dance hall. Helen's sister Jean Langford was at the Barrowland Ballroom with her before she vanished. She described a man Helen was with that night who went by the name of John. John kept quoting from the Bible and didn't drink (this last detail was obviously rather odd for someone on a night out in 1960s Glasgow). John even shared a taxi home with them. Jean said John seemed to regard her presence as an irritation and clearly wanted to be with her sister alone. She sensed no danger from him though as he was shortish, polite, and well spoken. The man clearly stuck out like a sore thumb and didn't seem the sort of person you'd find in a dance hall looking for women. After the second murder the police had taken the step of publishing details on the case in the newspapers in the hope that someone might have some information about a suspect. They also put plain clothed police detectives in the Barrowland Ballroom posing as patrons in the hope that the killer might reveal himself. However, there were no breakthroughs and so the investigation was wound down somewhat. It was at this time that - tragically - the third murder occurred. Glasgow experienced something of a serial killer panic at this time. People who were out and about at night were extra careful and wary of strangers. They didn't know who to trust. Although Jean and another eyewitness were able to provide a detailed description of this suspect the police frustratingly drew a blank. Dozens of detectives worked on the case and endless identity parades were arranged but Bible John proved elusive. The case was never solved. Senior police officers involved in this case later suggested that the investigation was something of a shambles and that they should have done a much better job in catching the killer. The crime scenes were not locked down thoroughly (which meant vital evidence was not protected) and there was an infamous bungling episode where the police dried some exhibits from one of the murder sites on radiator pipes - thus completely destroying any forensic evidence which might have been present. It's safe to say that the investigation was far from perfect. While the investigation sometimes left something to be desired it isn't as if there aren't any other killers who were never captured. Most nations have famous cases where a notorious killer was never caught. Take the Zodiac murders in the United States for example. A former Glasgow detective who worked with police at the time thought that the killer could be a man who was at the Barrowland Ballroom that last fateful night and attracted attention because he had an altercation that evening. The man in question identified himself as John White but escaped from police custody. There are doubts if this man was really the killer though. Some criminologists believed that the Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin might have been Bible John. Tobin was a frequent visitor to the Barrowland Ballroom. We shall discuss Tobin later on in this book. Another Scottish serial killer who some claim could have been Bible John is Angus Sinclair. Sinclair is another person we shall discuss later. In 1983 a man from Glasgow named Harry Wyllie claimed that a friend of his (who was not named in the media) was Bible John. Wyllie said his friend used to frequent the Barrowland Ballroom and had later moved from Scotland to Holland. Wyllie further claimed that a private detective had confirmed his suspicion. Despite press coverage of this story though the police did not make an arrest and evidently found insufficient evidence to confirm the armchair detective work of Harry Wyllie. What is remarkable about the Bible John case is that 50,000 witnesses were questioned in the end and yet the case has never been solved. In 1996, Strathclyde Police exhumed the body of John Irvine McInnes from a graveyard. McInnes was a former soldier who committed suicide in 1980. Because this deceased man was apparently related to one of the suspects in the Bible John case and had somewhat mysteriously taken his own life the police wanted to check his DNA against forensic evidence found on one of the Bible John victims. It turned out that police detectives had actually interviewed McInnes a few days after the murder of Helen Puttock. The police still had a nagging suspicion that McInnes had been the mysterious man named John in the taxi all those years ago. As you might imagine, there was a lot of coverage and speculation in the Scottish media concerning this new development. Had the enigmatic Bible John finally been unmasked? It was even alleged in the media that John Irvine McInnes had been the cousin of a senior Glasgow police officer and that the police had kept his name out of the Bible John frame (so to speak) as part of a cover up to protect the police officer in question. In the end though all this speculation and effort turned out to be a blind alley. There was no DNA link between this deceased man and the Bible John victims. John Irvine McInnes, his innocence proven, was laid to rest again. Here's the thing about the Bible John case though. Many believe that the three murders were not connected. Senior investigating officer Joe Beattie was apparently among them. Before he died he said - "No-one ever really thought one man killed three times." It could be the case then that 'Bible John' didn't even exist. There is another theory on this case and in many ways it is the most alarming theory of all. This theory suggests that the killer was a police officer. Joe Beattie allegedly didn't rule out this possibility. There are stories that bouncers at the Barrowland Ballroom suspected an obstreperous visitor at the dance hall of being the killer. When they had an altercation with this man he produced a police warrant card. Some have alleged that a police officer abruptly left the force after the killings and moved to the Highlands. This is certainly what you could - at a push - describe as suspicious. Theories on Bible John continue to abound. A woman claimed recently that Bible John was an RAF technician who worked at an air force base in Buckinghamshire. A writer has claimed that Bible John is still alive and living in Spain. Some police officers who worked on the case think that Bible John almost certainly either died or ended up in prison as that would explain why the murders stopped. The real truth in this case remains frustratingly out of reach. Perhaps one day though a breakthrough will be made and we will finally establish the identity of this mysterious and elusive killer. ROBERT BLACK Robert Black was born in Grangemouth in 1947. He spent some time in a children's home when he was young and always felt dangerously isolated from the world. Black, along with some other boys, attempted to rape a girl when he was twelve. He was sent to a special school as a consequence and claimed he was sexually abused there. All in all then it was a pretty dreadful and disturbing start to the life of Robert Black. Sadly and tragically, things would get a lot worse in the decades to come. Black left school at fifteen and got a job as a delivery driver in Glasgow. It later transpired that he had molested around thirty girls during this period. His first conviction came when he was seventeen. Black indecently assaulted a seven year-old girl after luring her to a deserted building. A large number of serial killers like Robert Black begin their life of crime with sexual offences. A lot of these disturbed individuals then seem to reach a point where their activities are not enough anymore. Peeping Tomdom is not enough. Molestation is not enough. Even rape is not enough. They want to go further. Despite his dysfunctional secret life and seedy criminal desires, Black actually got a girlfriend around this time. As a youngster he was also good at swimming and a talented footballer. If he'd somehow been able to turn these pursuits into a career or get married it might potentially have steered him onto a saner path. However, when he was rejected by his girlfriend he seemed to spiral out of control again. Black was soon up to his old harrowing tricks again. He was beginning to plunge down a rabbit hole of depravity and - eventually - murder. In 1966, Black was thrown out of his accommodation when he molested his landlord's young granddaughter. He was lucky though that the police were not brought in and a criminal case did not transpire. It seems that the family of this girl didn't want to put her through that sort of ordeal. Not long after, Black molested another child and ended up in a borstal (a Borstal was a type of youth detention centre for criminals deemed too young for prison). His whole life basically revolved around looking for little girls to molest. When he was released, Black moved far away to London and got a job at a swimming baths. Sadly though he managed to ruin this break by going back to his old ways. Black naturally abused this position by spying on the changing room of the women and young girls who used the pool. Black was eventually fired from this job after a girl there accused him of indecently touching her. Believe it or not, during this time Robert Black became something of a regular on the amateur darts circuit and got to know Eric Bristow. Little did the darts players know that Black was destined to be one of Scotland's worst child killers. That's the odd thing about Black. He was good at a lot of stuff - like swimming and darts - but he could never quite seem to turn any of these talents to his advantage because of his deviant sexual desires. He was truly his own worst enemy. In the mid 1970s, Black got a job as a delivery driver and - tragically - the freedom this gave him would lead to murder. Black's first murder was of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy in Ballinderry, County Antrim. Black dumped the body sixteen miles away. Jennifer had been drowned and strangled. The fact that the body was found near a layby on a main road made the police suspect that a lorry driver or delivery man was responsible for this awful crime. In this they were proved right in the end. In 1982, Black murdered 11-year-old Susan Maxwell on the English side of the border between England and Scotland. Black raped and strangled the girl and took the body many miles away to dump it by a road. In 1983, Black is believed to have murdered five-year-old Caroline Hogg in Edinburgh. Her body was eventually found in Leicestershire without clothes. Black's next victim was ten year-old Sarah Harper from Leeds in 1986. Her body was found near Nottingham four weeks later. She had been raped and strangled -a familiar MO of Black. Because the three victims had been found within twenty miles of each other the police suspected a connection. They sensed that the same killer had done all three murders and that he probably had a job that involved a lot of driving. Black thought he was being clever by leaving the bodies miles from the murder sites but he was actually being stupid by placing them so close together. Thankfully, Black's luck had finally run out. His dreadful murders would now come to an end. Robert Black was arrested in Scotland in 1990 - but not for murder. He had been caught trying to abduct a six year-old girl in his van in Stow. The girl was tied up up when she was thankfully rescued. A man named David Herkes was the hero in this arrest. Herkes was mowing his lawn and noticed a van acting suspiciously near the child. When the van sped off Herkes noted the number plate and called the police. Black was intercepted and the girl was found tied and bound in a sleeping bag. It was later proven that Black had sexually abused the girl before she was rescued.When the police searched Black's van they found ropes, hoods, a Polaroid camera, children's clothing, a mattress, and sex aids. The police also found that Black had a large collection of child porn in his lodgings when they arrested him. Black told the police that he had purchased this material in Holland. It later transpired that Black constantly changed his appearance and had a large collection of spectacles. Sometimes he would shave his head or grow a beard. It was all so that he wouldn't be recognised or picked out by an eyewitness. Black had some lucky escapes during his murder spree. In 1988 he had attempted to abduct a girl named Tessa Thornhill in Nottinghamshire. Black had presumed Tessa, who was very short for her age, was a little kid but she was actually 15. Tessa managed to bravely fight back against Black and escape. Black was given a life sentence for the abduction and sexual abuse of the six year-old girl. The police now looked at the murders of Susan Maxwell, Caroline Hogg and Sarah Harper again. Black certainly fitted the profile of the sort of person they were looking for. They also learned that Black had been a van driver during this period. Black had expert knowledge of the road network throughout the British Isles. The police managed to get hold of petrol receipts which placed Black near the areas where the victims had been dumped. In 1994, Robert Black was found guilty of these murders. In 2011, Black was also found guilty of the murder of nine year-old Jennifer Cardy - who, as we noted, was abducted and murdered in 1981. The police believe that Robert Black was probably responsible for at least eight murders in the United Kingdom but, sadly, some of these cases have yet to be solved. He is even suspected of murders in France, Holland, and Germany. As part of his job as a van driver, Black made regular trips to the continent. There is little doubt that Black would have looked for victims as he drove around Europe. Who knows how many children he really killed? The police doggedly tried to get the incarcerated Black to confess to any other murders he might have committed but he refused to do this and did not cooperate with them. Robert Black died from a heart attack at HMP Maghaberry on the 12th of January 2016, aged 68. Not a single relative attended his funeral. They wanted nothing to do with him. Given the nature of Black's crimes, one can hardly blame them for that attitude.  IAN BRADY Ian Brady was born in Glasgow in 1936. It is hard to think of any man in British criminal history as evil and despised as Brady was. The crimes he committed with Myra Hindley shocked and appalled Britain in the 1960s. Brady said that as a boy on his paper round he encountered the face of Death - who showed him the vision of children on a moor. Brady, in his own mind, saw the Moors Murders as a sacrificial offering to the 'Death' figure that had visited him as a child. Ian Brady's childhood 'vision' is probably explained by the fact that he had a form of epilepsy that left him prone to hallucinations. Brady was clearly destined for bad things from a young age. He was cruel to animals, broke into houses, and threatened his first girlfriend with a knife. When he was about 17, Brady's mother moved to Manchester so he went with her. The change in environment made no difference to Brady's behaviour. He continued to thieve and as a consequence had a spell in Strangeways Prison and also a number of borstals around England. On his return to Manchester he had some menial jobs which he loathed so Brady taught himself book-keeping in order to get a better job. This study paid off because Brady secured a clerical job at Millwards, a wholesale chemical distribution company based in Gorton. Myra Hindley was born in Manchester in 1942. She had a fairly bog standard background and became a clerk at an engineering firm when she left school. It was in 1961 that Hindley got this job as a typist at Millwards Merchandising and it was here that she met the vile and older Ian Brady. Brady loved reading Mein Kampf and seemed to be obsessed with Hitler. Hindley was completely besotted with Brady and he would regale her with tales of the Marquis de Sade and Nazis. Brady made Hindley die her hair blonde and start wearing leather clothes. He seemed to be trying to make her look like some 'Aryan' villain from Nazi Germany. Hindley even stopped going to church because Brady told her that God didn't exist. The couple were soon planning bank robberies together and it's a great pity they didn't stick to that plan. What they did instead was indescribably evil and constituted the most harrowing crimes anyone could imagine. Brady was a pompous weirdo with no moral compass and highly dangerous. He and Hindley became inseparable and the criminal career they forged together was evil beyond words. The first victim was teenager Pauline Reade. Hindley lured her to Saddleworth Moor while Brady followed on his motorbike. He then hit her with a shovel and fractured her skull. Brady raped Reade and slit her throat. Pauline's body was only discovered three decades later in 1987. Twelve-year-old John Kilbride was the next victim. Brady raped him and cut his throat. Kilbride survived having his throat cut and was then strangled by Brady. It was Hindley who had been the bait in the couple luring Kilbride to the moor. In 1964, twelve year-old Keith Bennett and ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey were murdered by Brady and Hindley. Keith was lured into a car by Hindley and she took him to the moor where Brady raped and murdered him. Keith's body, much to the distress of his mother, was never found. Ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey was abducted and taken to Hindley's house where she was tortured and then raped and strangled. Brady and Hindley recorded a sixteen minute tape of Lesley pleading for her life and screaming. The last victim was seventeen year-old Edward Evans, who Brady killed with an axe in an attempt to impress David Smith - the husband of Hindley's sister. Brady, who was completely insane, had always boasted of his murderous exploits and wanted to prove he hadn't made them up. Smith called the police and the ghastly crimes of Brady and Hindley began to be uncovered. Ian Brady was described as arrogant and aloof at his trial. He tried to pin the blame on David Smith - which was desperate and doomed to failure. Brady showed no emotion when the awful tape of Lesley Ann Downey's screams were heard. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Capital punishment had only recently been abolished so Brady had a close shave when it came to avoiding a death sentence. Most people at the time probably would have been delighted to see Ian Brady hung for his crimes. The Moors Murders were incredibly harrowing and upsetting for the general public at the time. You could say that society was less innocent in the 1960s. Crimes like this were simply far less reported and less prevalent too. The thought that a woman too was involved in the torture and murder of children was beyond belief to society at the time. Myra Hindley pretended she played no role in the murders and rapes in court but Brady, who wasn't half as clever as he thought he was, unwittingly implicated Hindley when he told the court that after the assault on Lesley Ann Downey they had all put their clothes back on. This implied that Hindley had been a very active participant in the abuse. Like his fellow Scottish lunatic Dennis Nilsen, Ian Brady was an insufferable pseudo-intellectual bore in prison and wrote endless letters, essays, and books. Brady, like Nilsen, also endlessly complained about his treatment and the standard of prisons. He even went on a hunger strike at one point and had to be force fed. It's fair to say that few people had any sympathy for him. Most people probably hoped he was having an awful time. When, towards the end of her life, Myra Hindley seemed to have a vague possibly of release, Ian Brady was much put out by this and kicked up a fuss. He said Hindley always downplayed her part in the murders and blamed everything on him. Myra Hindley would later blame Brady for the murders and said that she was fearful of him and was abused. In cases like this it is fairly common for the female half of the killer duo to claim after capture that they were a victim too and had no choice. "I had this obsession about him," said Hindley of Brady. "This infatuation, I believed it to be love. I think it stemmed from the fact Brady was so different to anyone I had met. He seemed cloaked in an aura of mystery I could never quite penetrate, never quite solve and this unknowability intrigued me and continued to enhance his attraction to me." Despite her expressions of remorse and attempts to get parole, no one really believed that Hindley was innocent and she will probably forever be the most infamous female figure in British true crime history. There were attempts, especially by Lord Longford, to release Myra Hindley from prison but the newspapers and public were appalled by this. Hindley died in prison in 2002. Myra Hindley was still so despised that when she died the prison authorities struggled to find an undertaker willing to handle the cremation. Ian Brady died of restrictive pulmonary disease at Ashworth Hospital on the 15th of May 2017. He was 79. A judge had ruled that, contrary to Brady's instructions, there should be no funeral and no music played during the disposal of Brady’s body. Brady's ashes were scattered in the sea off Liverpool. Despite repeated pleas by Keith's mother Winnie Johnson, Brady never revealed where Keith Bennett was buried. Ian Brady was truly one of the most vile and awful people in the history of true crime. BURKE & HARE