Who was Bible John?

The Silent Evidence's Podcast

In Feb 1968, Patricia Docker, an attractive 25 year old nurse from Glasgow, Scotland, went out for a night of dancing at the city's Barrowlands ballroom, but didn’t return home to the house she shared with her parents and young son. The following morning her body was found just yards from her home, having been beaten and strangled to death.

18 months later, 32 year old Jemima MacDonald enlisted her sister Margaret as a babysitter to look after her 3 young children and got herself ready for a night of dancing at the Barrowlands. 3 days later Margaret found Jemima’s body in an abandoned building close to her home. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death with her own stockings.

Just 3 months later, Helen Puttock and her sister Jean visited the Barrowlands, where they met 2 men, both named John. At the end of the evening, one of the John’s took a bus home while the other shared a taxi with the 2 sisters. The taxi dropped of Jean first and Helen and John continued onwards towards Helen’s house. The following morning, Helen’s body was found in a courtyard close to her home. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled with her own stockings.

The similarities in all 3 murders were not lost on the police. All 3 women had been beaten, strangled, had their purses stolen, and were murdered close to their homes. Strangely, all 3 had been menstruating at the time of their murders too. And all 3 had last been seen at the Barrowlands ballroom.

The John that Helen and Jean had shared a taxi with became the prime suspect, and a portrait of him was drawn up and was widely circulated around the country. Jean recalled that he had quoted what she thought were passages of scripture, having described the dancehalls of the city as ‘dens of iniquity’ and stating that he preferred to pray than to party at new year. As a result the mysterious killer was dubbed Bible John in the press.

The police launched what was to be Scotland’s largest manhunt at the time, conducting door to door enquiries, flooding the dancehalls with undercover cops, sending officers to chase leads overseas, and even exhuming the body of a deceased potential suspect.

However none of this brought them any closer to identifying the mysterious Bible John, though the search narrowed in to just a few credible suspects. Was he a police officer, upholding the law during the day, and stalking the dancehalls by night? Was he a heavy-drinking ex-soldier who committed suicide a few years later? Or were these the early crimes of one of 2 Scottish serial killers who would both go on to be convicted of several murders many years later? Or perhaps there was no Bible John at all, but 3 separate unrelated murders?

This is episode number 5, who is Bible John?

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