The Bible John Murders - Part 3

29 year old Helen Puttock lived with her mother and two young children, David (5) and Michael (1) at 129 Earl Street, Scotstoun. Helen’s husband George was a service man who she had met when visiting her brother in Surrey, the pair fell in love instantly and were married soon after. Helen followed her husband in his postings, spending some years in Germany. However, Helen found the life of an army life lonely and isolated, and persuaded her husband to allow her to return to Glasgow with the children until he could get a posting closer to home. The couple kept in touch by letter, and George made every effort to visit his family when leave permitted. It was during one of these trips that Helen announced to George that she was going out dancing with her sister, Jeannie Langford, on the night of Thursday 30^th October 1969. George told Helen that he didn’t think it was proper for a married mother to go out dancing without her husband, but Helen insisted it was perfectly normal, she was hardly going out on the pull after all, she was only going out for a bit of a dance with her sister. George was eventually persuaded, he gave Helen ten shillings to get a taxi home to ensure her safety.

Earl Street, Scotstoun

So it was that Helen, dressed in a black sleeveless dress, brown tights, a faux fur coat, black shoes and carrying a red purse, bid her husband and children good night and hit the town with her sister. The pair first took a bus to Glasgow cross around 8pm and headed to a number of bars. They made their way to The Traders Tavern where they had arranged to meet two other friends, Marion Cadder and Jean O’Donnell, where they had a few drinks before joining the queue outside the nearby Barrowland Ballroom. Once inside the two women made straight for the bathrooms to touch up their make up before making their way to the dance floor. 

Despite the heavily publicised murders of two young women connected with the Barrowland, there was no sense of great concern amongst the patrons. One woman who attended the Barrowland at the time told an author years later: ‘That sort of thing (murder) always happened to someone else, there was always more to it, it never happened to normal folk did it?’ Helen and Jeannie were just that, normal folk. Jeannie had taken to the dancefloor, but Helen was more reticent, standing at the side, but soon Jeannie noticed that her younger sister had attracted a companion and was dancing with a tall, handsome man who stood out because he seemed ‘suave and a little sophisticated.’ Jeannie had also attracted company, a man who offered to be her dance partner for the night. When asked about himself, he was vague and Jeannie surmised that he was likely married, but she didn’t mind, she only wanted to dance anyway.

Both women danced the evening away with their respective partners, occasionally they would meet for a chat, the sisters thought it was funny that both of the men claimed that their name was John, an typically unimaginative pseudonym to hide their identity which wasn’t unusual at the Thursday ‘Over 25’s’ night, where many of the customers were married or spoken for.  Jeannie later reported: ‘I don’t believe either of them were called John, in fact the man I was dancing with was first to introduce himself to the others. When it came to Helen’s partner he seemed to pause for a second or two before giving his name as John, he seemed a bit apprehensive and it was the only time I saw him look less than confident because he seemed so certain of himself in every other way.’

Jeannie didn’t believe the two men knew each other previous to that evening, she reported that her John even remarked that he didn’t like the other John. He told her he found him strange and full of himself, he wouldn’t look him in the eye and he felt he was hiding something. He believed he was a cop, he had that manner.

Eventually the evening’s dancing came to a close and the two couples made their way toward the exit. Jeannie wanted to get some cigarettes from the machine for the next day. But when she inserted her money the machine wouldn’t open to allow her to take her cigarettes, she remembered that Helen’s John was irritated by this, he called over the manager and assertively demanded Jeannie’s money back. Jeannie said ‘He wasn’t outraged or shouting, he was collected and very calm but very assertive. It was like a schoolteacher speaking to a young child, he was giving the manager a real dressing down…I expected him to get a good hiding for the way he spoke to the manager, but to my surprise nothing happened and the manager seemed to back off.’ From the manner in which he spoke, Jeannie, believed that he was a man used to giving orders and being obeyed. The manager accepted that the machine was at fault but told them to return tomorrow for the refund as the tills had been cashed up. At this point John’s manner changed and he became aggressive and told the two women as they made their way downstairs: ‘My father says these places are dens of iniquity.’

The group were re-joined by Jeannie’s partner, and as she turned towards her sister she noticed that she was deep in conversation with her John. She got the impression that John had said something to Helen that she didn’t believe, she was shaking her head and smirking, at this point Jeannie remembers John producing something from his jacket pocket and showing it to Helen as way of proof. Jeannie believed it was a card or some form of identification. On seeing the card, Helen’s attitude changed from playful disbelief to surprised acceptance and an air of satisfaction. Whatever Helen had seen on the card had clearly verified to her that this man was genuine and authentic. Jeannie leant over to try to see what was on the card, but he pulled it away, replying ‘You know what happens to nosy folk.’ Jeannie would later say of the card ‘I have my own thoughts on what it might have been, because Helen wouldn’t trust anyone unless she believed they were something that was official and definitely safe.’

The four made their way out of the dance hall and walked along Gallowgate towards Glasgow Cross. At London Road, Jeannie’s partner bid them goodnight, telling the group he was going to catch a bus from George Square to Castlemilk. At the cross, Helen, Jeannie and ‘John’ got into a taxi and began the 20 minute journey to Scotstoun. Jeannie says that during the journey his manner changed again, be became moody and aloof. Jeannie recognised that he saw her as an obstacle between himself and Helen. Sensing his hostility toward her, Jeannie tried to lighten the mood by asking him questions about himself. John gave little intimate detail away, he told them that his family had a caravan in Irvine, and that he played golf. When asked if he enjoyed dancing, his answers took a more sinister tone, he talked of his disapproval of married women going to the dancehalls and spoke angrily of ‘adulterous women’ in general. He also mentioned having a sister but immediately tried to retract this detail by talking of a foster home.

When asked about what he did at New Year, he replied that he didn’t drink but preferred to pray instead. He would contradict this statement by later declaring he was agnostic. Yet, he began to quote from the bible. While he was quoting from the Bible the taxi was passing an area known as Kingsway, where there were high rise flats. He mentioned something about his father or another relative having worked there. It is known that at some point a foster home was located on the site. This local knowledge coupled with his earlier comment about foster children, led some police to believe that he had been a foster child.

Eventually the taxi drew up in Earl Street, it would have made sense for Helen and John to alight first because Jeannie’s home was further on in Kelso Street. However John insisted that Jeannie be dropped off first, and instructed the driver to continue to Kelso Street. At the roundabout at Kelso street, Jeannie bid her sister goodnight, saying ‘I’ll maybe see you next week” but John slammed the taxi door shut mid-sentence. The driver was later able to confirm that the taxi pulled up at 95 Earl Street a couple of minutes later, the woman had got out the cab, and the man, who he assumed to be her partner, paid the fare. He said the man seemed annoyed with Helen because she had immediately started to walk away from him as she got out of the cab. He drove off, and other than the killer, was the last person to see Helen Puttock alive.

At 2am a no.6 night service bus was travelling along Dumbarton Road in the direction of the city centre, close to Gardner Street/Fortrose Street the bus stopped to pick up a man with a dishevelled appearance. The same man had been seen by another witness walking quickly up Dumbarton Road. On the bus, a passenger, driver and conductor noticed that the man’s jacket was covered in mud, and that he had a scratch just below his eye. They reported that the man was clearly uncomfortable with his appearance and made efforts to disguise it. It was clear to those who saw him that he had been involved in some sort of physical altercation. At the junction of Dumbarton Road and Derby Street, the man stopped the bus and got off, disappearing into the night.

At 7.30am Archibald MacIntyre of 95 Earl Street was taking his dog for a walk, he descended the back stairs and out into the enclosed backyard of the tenement. The dog began sniffing what Archibald believed to be a bundle of rags, he would later recall: ‘When I went over to the rags I got a terrible shock to find it was a woman’s body…She was wearing her coat but it had been pulled roughly up over her head.’ Around the woman’s neck was tied one of her own stockings. Archibald ran to the nearest telephone box to alert the police.

The police noticed that dead woman had abrasions to her jaw and the side of her head, her mouth and nose had dried blood running from them. There was extensive bruising to the face, which was unrecognisable. Her dress and coat were torn, a god chain she had been wearing around her neck had been torn from her and lay broken nearby. As in the previous murders, the victim’s handbag was missing. Police found a cheap cufflink in the mud which they believed may have been torn from the attacker’s clothing by the woman as she tried to defend herself. The victim, like Patricia Docker and Mima McDonald, had been menstruating at the time of her murder, and a used sanitary towel was found tucked beneath her armpit, no doubt placed there by the killer himself. The police noticed bite marks on her wrist.

Detectives arrived and tried their best to preserve the crime scene from the local residents who were crowding into the courtyard and, innocently, interfering with evidence that may have been crucial to the detectives. For the third time in eighteen months the police were left with an unidentified corpse and few leads as to her identity. Police set up an incident caravan at the door of number 95. Door-to-door enquiries led to a witness who recalled hearing a woman cry out in the early hours of the morning, but dismissed it as drunken revelry at the time.

Later in the morning, George Puttock arrived at the incident caravan and told officers that his wife hadn’t returned home from a night out dancing at the Barrowland Ballroom with her sister. He was asked questions about what his wife was wearing when she went out,  afterwards detective Joe Beattie took him to one side, he was later to recall: ‘I will never forget him putting his hand on my shoulder and saying: “I’m sorry son, your wife’s been murdered”.


Jeannie Langford was notified of the murder shortly after George Puttock, she was so distraught that it took some time before officers could get a statement from her. It was not lost on the detectives that Jeannie was the key witness to the crime, she had seen, spoken to and travelled with the man who likely brutally beaten, raped and strangled Helen Puttock. Jeannie’s recollections of the evening were excellent and detectives were confident that it was only a matter of time before they had their killer behind bars. Jeannie remembered that ‘John’ had worn some sort of metal badge on his lapel which he fingered continually. She felt that he was almost trying to hide it from the group, but also sensed that his persistent touching of it meant that it gave him a sense of authority. 

On November 4^th 1969 The Glasgow Herald reported: ‘Bible Quoting’ Man Sought By Murder Hunt Police. In it, a description of the killer was issued: ‘A man aged between 25-30, 5ft10 to 6ft tall, of medium build, with light auburn reddish hair, styled short, and brushed to the right. He had blue grey eyes, nice straight teeth with one tooth on the upper right jaw overlapping the next tooth, fine features, and is generally of smart modern appearance. He is dressed in brownish, flecked single breasted suit, the jacket of which has three or four buttons and high lapels. He has a knee length brownish coat of tweed or gabardine, a light blue shirt and a dark tie with red diagonal stripes.

Journalist John Quinn claims to be the one to christen the killer ‘Bible John’, he would later report: ‘With the detailed description rushing around in my head, I ran from police headquarters that day to catch the latest deadline using my radio phone in the car. Advising my new editor of the facts, I said: “Let’s call him Bible John.” And so the name that was to haunt the city and inspire fear for decades to come was coined and a legend had begun.

To be continued.

The Bible John Murders - Part Two

Born in 1937, Jemima (known as Mima) McDonald was one of seven children, four girls and three boys. In 1969 she was a 32-year old single mother to three children, Elizabeth (12), Andrew (9), and Alan (7). Mima had suffered at the hands of the men in her life, experiencing domestic violence at the hands of more than one, but she, perhaps naively, still believed that the right man for her was out there, somewhere. By all accounts, she was a great mother who always put her children first and was determined to give them every opportunity to develop and prosper.

Mima MacDonald

Standing 5ft7inches tall, Mima had a slim figure and striking dark, shoulder length hair which she was particularly proud of. Like most women of her era, Mima liked to go dancing, but because most of her friends were married, she often found herself treading the dancefloors alone or with acquaintances she had met on the night.

Mima lived in a tiny flat, consisting of only one main room and a kitchen, at 15 MacKeith Street, Bridgeton. Mima was well known in the area, often seen doing her errands in Curleys or having a drink at the local Blue Bird Café on Main Street. Mima enjoyed living in Bridgeton, despite it’s bad reputation at the time, she described Bridgeton to a friend as: ‘a tiny city where everyone looks after their own, within a bigger city where nobody cares.’

Bridgeton

Mima’s older sister Margaret, lived in the same tenement as Mima did, just across the landing. The sisters would look out for each other, with Margaret looking after the children if her younger sister had a date or wanted to go out to the dancing. A friend of Mima’s later reported: ‘The weekend Mima was murdered, she had been busy and was out jiggin’ at the Barrowland on the Thursday, Friday as well as the Saturday night. She never admitted as much but we believe she had met a fella who she was keen on and wanted to get to know a bit better. Some folk who knew her said they had seen her with a new man; he was handsome looking by all accounts and she seemed to be captivated by him…Such a nice looking man, well-groomed and smartly dressed, was rare to most of us in the East End. Anyone who dressed like that tended to be something to do with the police.’

And so it was that on Saturday 16^th August 1969 Mima got ready for another night of dancing at the Barrowland Ballroom. After giving the children their tea, she put on her make-up, her favourite black pinafore dress, a while frilly blouse, a brown wool coat, and a pair of cream slingback hells, dropped the kids at her sisters, kissed them each goodbye and left. On the way she called into Betty’s Bar, located just across the street from the Barrowland, for a few drinks and to chat with fellow revellers. In those days the Barrowland didn’t sell alcohol, so the bars in the general vicinity were always teeming with people getting a few drinks in before making their way to the venue. It was later reported that Mima was seen talking to a well-dressed, good looking young man in Betty’s Bar. She was seen dancing with the same man in the Ballroom, he was a tall man with short, light red hair and she seemed happy to be in his company. Mima MacDonald never returned home that night, her partly-clothed body was found on Sunday 17^th August 1969.

Betty's Bar, Gallowgate

On the morning of Sunday 17^th August, Mima’s sister Margaret went across the landing to knock on Mima’s door. There was no answer, but Margaret assumed that Mima might still be asleep, nursing a hangover, and wasn’t unduly concerned. Margaret knocked again in a few hours and again there was no answer. By Sunday evening, Margaret started to think that perhaps Mima had met someone, and decided to spend a few nights with that person, but Mima had never left her kids for this long without at least contacting to make arrangements. Nevertheless, she decided to leave it until Monday morning before making the usual checks with friends and family. So it was that on the Monday morning, with no sign of Mima returning, Margaret decided to call on her neighbours who she knew to be regulars at the Barrowland, in the vain hope that they might have seen or heard something of her sister. 

Barrowland Ballroom 1960s

As Margaret left the tenement, she heard groups of children whispering about a body that lay on the ground floor a derelict tenement nearby, 23 MacKeith Street. The tenement was gaunt and eerie, with no electricity, some of the windows to the lower floors had been boarded up by the council while others had been smashed clean out. The abandoned building had become a playground for children during the day, by night it provided a roof to tramps or a private place for an illicit sexual liaison.

Children playing in an abandoned tenement Maryhill

It was now after 10am and an unsuspected Margaret became curious and asked the children where this body was and if they recognised who it was. A man who claimed to be one of the children who found the body later reported: ‘I had seen drunken tramps sleeping in that block, it wasn’t fit for human habitation but desperate people used it for their own devices…It wasn’t normal to see a woman sleeping in the rooms though I know people who did see couples having sex in there. I didn’t recognise the woman lying in the flat, none of us did…At first I thought it wasn’t a real person, it looked like some sort of tailor’s dummy or model, it was only when someone said it was a woman and she was bleeding on her face that we realised something was different…When I saw the body, the woman was laid face down, she had some of her clothes pulled up and some were torn and ripped...Her head was facing to one side and her hair was covering part of it. I remember thinking she looked like she was sleeping.’

One of the children must have reported the gruesome find to their parents as soon dozens of residents were crowding in to have a look at the body, disturbing a crime scene and perhaps destroying vital evidence. Some even attempted to move the body before the police arrived, although this was done with good intentions, they were trying to identify the woman and inform her family, it only made the police’s job harder when they were eventually called.

Meanwhile Margaret made her way through the crowds in the building, only to find the body of her younger sister lying dead in the bed recess. She had been strangled with her stockings, and her face was bloody and beaten. Police soon arrived on the scene and cordoned off MacKeith street, it was determined that Mima’s black handbag was missing from the crime scene, it was also noted that she had been menstruating at the time of her death, estimated to be about 30 hours earlier. This was confirmed by several children who reported having seen the body lying there the previous day. It was later confirmed that Mima had died in the early hours of Sunday 17^th August 1969.

Door-to-door enquiries revealed little, it appeared that the killer had entered like a ghost and vanished in the same manner. One witness reporting seeing Mima talking to a man outside 23 MacKeith street around 12.40am, Police searched the wasteland surrounding the abandoned tenement searching for Mima’s missing handbag, but nothing was found. The police then moved their enquiries to the Barrowland ballroom, where they spoke from the stage microphone about the murder of Mima McDonald and appealed for witnesses who might have seen her to come forward. Two witnesses did come forward, each having seen her with a man, 25-35 years old, 6ft-6ft2 inches tall, slim with a thin pale face and reddish fair hair. It was believed he was wearing a stylish, good quality blue suit with a white shirt and tie. Another witness reported seeing the couple in London Rd at the junction with Abercromby Street at around 12.15am. In an effort to jog people’s memory, a police woman dressed in similar clothing to those worn by Mima on that fateful evening, retraced her walk home from the Barrowland but the reconstruction provided no new evidence.

Despite the obvious similarities between Mima’s murder and the murder of Patricia Docker 18 months earlier, the police did not initially link both crimes. It was not until the 21^st of August 1969 that the police confirmed that they were looking closely at the two crimes. A Senior detective told press: ‘There are one or two similarities between both murders…I cannot say more on that point at the moment.’ Detective Tom Goodall made the unprecedented decision of having a portrait drawn up of the likely killer, with information drawn from eye witness reports. The painting was done by the deputy director of the Glasgow School of Art, G.W. Lennox Patterson and published in the press on Tuesday 26^th August 1969 and that image would haunt Glasgow for decades.

Meanwhile, attendance at Glasgow’s dancehall’s was declining, seemingly as much a result of the increased police presence in the venues as a mysterious unnamed killer in the midst. Pressure was put on the police force to wind down their operations in the dancehalls as it was effectively putting customers off. As in the case of Patricia Docker, with few new leads the search for the killer began to slip from the police agenda and the from the front pages. In an effort to maintain public interest, Jean, Mima’s oldest sister, offered a £100 reward for the capture of her sister’s killer. It was never claimed.

Years later a resident of Bridgeton remembered the profound effect the murder had on the district: ‘All these years later I don’t think MacKeith Street can be mentioned anywhere in Bridgeton and other parts of Glasgow without Mima MacDonald being remembered. I know it’s Bible John who gets most mentions but Mima was a lovely girl, a smashing lass who didn’t deserve the life she had or to die in such terrible circumstances, she was a loving mother with three lovely kids…People round here will never forget, if they ever do catch him then I hope he gets his just rewards. It might be 25 years since it happened but that man is still the most despised character in this city.’

That despised character was to strike again only two months later.

To be continued.

The Bible John Murders - Part 1

It was a cold, frosty, February morning in 1968, when 67 year old joiner Maurice Goodman left his home at 27 Carmichael Place, Battlefield, to make the short journey to his garage lock-up located in a narrow, cobbled lane running between Overdale Street and Ledard Road, named Carmichael Lane. It was barely light and Maurice noticed nothing out of the ordinary until he reached his garage, where he observed something laid across the front of the garage door, blocking it. As he got closer he realised it was the naked body of a woman, lying on her back, with her head turned to the right. There was no clothing nearby, but, thinking that perhaps the body was only a sleeping drunk Maurice nudged it with his foot, he would later recall ‘It was like touching a block of ice, I instinctively knew that it was a dead person.’

Maurice immediately rushed from the lane, returning home to call the police and report the gruesome find. Somehow, despite the body being naked, perhaps due to shock, Maurice incorrectly identified the body as that of a man to police. At this point, the police did not suspect the death to be suspicious, they negligently assumed that the body was probably a vagrant or a drunk who had died of exposure in the cold February night. This perhaps explains why the first police officers to eventually arrive at the scene were two traffic policemen who happened to be in the area. Unpractised in a murder case, unfortunately, the two traffic policemen did not preserve the crime scene or follow the forensic protocol that was required.

At approximately 8am two detectives, Detective Sergeant Andrew Johnstone and Detective Constable Norman MacDonald, arrived at the scene. It was clear to the detectives that the circumstances surrounding the death were suspicious, there was no sign of any clothing surrounding the body save for a pair of tan sling-back shoes that were located nearby. Also located near the body was a used sanitary towel. The detectives observed dark bruising on the woman’s neck, suggestive of ligature strangulation, as well as various cuts and bruises indicating that the victim had been violently beaten.

It took almost an hour for the crime scene to be locked down and for crucial evidence preserved, Detective Superintendent Elphinstone Dalglish ordered the erection of a tent to preserve the body and allow for closer examination of the remains. A mobile police caravan was set up on Ledard Road to serve as a point of contact for concerned local residents who were already flocking around the scene. The police surgeon noted the ligature marks and pronounced the likely cause of death to be manual strangulation, he also noted that rigor mortis had set in but determining a time of death was complicated by the heavy frost which would have speeded up the lowering of body temperature, he could only say with confidence that the woman had been dead for some hours.

The press soon swarmed on the scene, and, to their credit, did what police should have done hours before and began canvassing neighbours in the hope of identifying the murdered woman, forcing the police to intervene and demand that the press stop in case it harmed their own investigations. Almost two hours after the discovery of the body, the police’s own door-to-door enquiries began, and it soon became apparent that no one had seen or heard anything. The crime, if it had happened where the body was found, seems to have occurred in absolute silence. The police assumed the body to be of a local person, but the house to house enquires revealed no missing or absent residents from any of the surrounding streets.
News of the gruesome find was the talk of the area, and soon spread to the nearby Victoria Infirmary, where staff discussed between themselves whether the body could be that of a wandering patient or a hospital worker. Two nurses, Matron Ishbel Cameron and assistant Matron Elsbeth Bissett viewed the body but were unable to identify it, later an ambulance driver viewed the body and told police that he recognised it as a nurse from the hospital but was unable to give police a name. At around 12pm the body was removed from the lane, with police no closer to an identification.

A post-mortem examination confirmed the manner of death as strangulation, she had also been raped and viciously beaten before her death. It was also confirmed that the discarded sanitary towel found near the body belonged to the victim, doctors believed it had been removed by the killer before he raped her. With door to door enquiries still on going, a woman who lived nearby reported that she’d heard screams in the early hours of the morning: ‘I heard a woman shout out, twice in quick succession “Let me go.’ It was brief and I never heard it again. I thought nothing of it at the time. It was not followed by any kind of screams or any sort of commotion really…It all happened so quickly.’ While this statement didn’t offer up any real information as to the identity of killer or victim, it did, if it was correct, suggest that the murder did occur in the lane, and that the lane was not merely where the body was dumped. Devoid of any other options and no closer to identifying the victim, the police released a description of the victim to the press: Medium height, short, dark brown wavy hair, hazel eyes, snub nose, wearing a wedding ring on her right hand.

 John Wilson (63) of 29 Langside Place (less than one minutes’ walk from the crime scene) read the description that day in the evening paper. He lived with his wife Pauline, their daughter Patricia, and Patricia’s four year old son Sandy, and for a moment he considered the whereabouts his daughter Patricia who had gone out for the evening and had not yet returned. Although he was concerned, he knew Patricia was a sensible girl and supposed that she was still with her nursing friends who she said she had gone out with the night before. After discussing his worried with his wife – John made his way to the Ledard road incident caravan and informed police that his daughter, Patricia Docker, had not returned from an evening dancing the night before. He had taken a recent photograph of Patricia with him, but due to the intensive facial bruising on the body an identification couldn’t be made, he was asked to view the body at the morgue instead where he recognised the body as that of his only child, Patricia (25).

It was revealed that Patricia and her son Sandy had been living with her parents at Langside Place since returning from Cyprus in 1967. She had separated from her husband Alex, an army corporal, who was now living in Lincolnshire. Patricia was an auxiliary nurse at Mearnskirk hospital, who usually worked nightshift. On her days off she was a keen dancer, a regular at the Locarno, the Majestic and the Barrowland Ballroom. Her parents believed that on the previous evening she had gone with some friends to the Majestic Ballroom on Hope Street. She had left around 8.30pm wearing a mustard woollen dress, a grey duffle coat with a blue fur collar, and brown slingback shoes and carrying a brown handbag.

The Locarno Ballroom

Police immediately suspected Patricia’s ex-husband of the murder, the fact that the serviceman had been on annual leave at the time of the murder strengthened their suspicion. However Alex Docker was able to prove that he was elsewhere at the time of the murder.

The Majestic Ballroom, since demolished

Nevertheless, Police now had the information that she had spent the Thursday evening at the Majestic Ballroom to work from, and issued an appeal for fellow revellers to come forward with information. Police began to believe that Patricia had been driven from the ballroom to the lane by her killer, as there were no sightings of her on any public buses that night. Furthermore, the fact that all of Patricia’s clothing had been removed from the scene suggested that the killer had a car, as surely a man carrying a bundle of women’s clothes, including a hand bag would be noticed walking through Glasgow. Officers were dispatched to search local yards, bins, garages and rivers in search of the missing items. In the murky depths of the river Cart, officers found Patricia’s bracelet, part of a watchcase, and her handbag.

Majestic Ballroom

The Barrowland Ballroom

Police canvassed the Majestic ballroom, speaking to everyone who attended the following week. Armed with photographs of Patricia, they interviewed management, door staff, cloakroom attendants as well as patrons. A blown up picture of Patricia was shown on the ballroom’s screen, and a police spokesperson spoke on stage and asked for assistance in tracing Patricia’s killer. However, despite their best efforts, the police’s hunch that Patricia had remained at the Majestic all evening was mistaken. A witness who knew Patricia said they had seen her dancing at the Majestic but that she had left when it closed at 10.30pm to go to the Barrowland Ballroom which was open until midnight. This information meant that police had lost valuable time canvassing the majestic when it seemed likely her killer had picked her up at the Barrowland instead. Later the witness who said he had seen Patricia that night at the Majestic retracted his statement, saying he had been mistaken, it was another night, this, coupled with other witnesses placing Patricia at the Ballroom earlier than 10.30, led police to believe that she had never been to the Majestic at all that night. Several people came forward to say they had seen Patricia dancing with several men at the Barrowland, and that one of the men had light red hair, but this was little for police to go on and soon the trail went cold. Gradually press and public attention fell away and the police investigations ground down, until, that is, another woman was found murdered after an evening’s dancing in August 1969.

To be continued. 

1908: THE MURDER OF MARION GILCHRIST

Marion Gilchrist

The date was the 21^st of December 1908, Marion Gilchrist was a wealthy 81 year old woman living alone in a flat at 15 Queens Terrance, West Princes Street, in Glasgow’s West End. In the flat directly below that of Miss Gilchrist lived a family by the name of Adams, on the evening of the 21st they heard a thud from emanating from the flat above followed by the sound of three distinct knocks. Miss Gilchrist was reportedly terrified at the thought of being burgled and had established a system whereby if she ever needed help from the Adams she would knock down to them.  The Adams understandably assumed this to be the signal and decided to check on Miss Gilchrist, they found the close door open, when it was usually closed, but continued up to Marion Gilchrist’s second floor flat and rang the bell. There was no reply and no sound from inside the flat although Mr Adams could see by looking through one of the class panels on the door that the gas lamp in the hall was lit. He rang the bell once more. At this point Adam reports that he heard a sound he took to be that of someone cutting sticks, assuming this to be Miss Gilchrist’s servant, Nellie Lambie, he returned to his own home. He reporting his impressions to his sister, who was certain that something was definitely wrong in the upstairs apartment,  and demanded that Adams return once more and have another look. Dutifully Adams returned to the Gilchrist flat and rang the doorbell once more, the cutting sound has stopped and all was silence until Adams heard the sound of footsteps advancing up the close stairs behind him, on turning round he discovered these to be those of Miss Gilchrist’s servant Nellie who he has supposed to be cutting wood inside.

West Princes Street today, formerly Queens Terrace

After explaining his concerns to the servant, Nellie answered that the chopping sound was most likely only the pulley in the kitchen which needed greased. She unlocked the door and both she and Adams entered the lobby which was dimly lit by a gas lamp. As Nellie approached the kitchen to check on the pulley a man suddenly appeared out of the bedroom doorway and approached Adams as if he was about to speak to him before walking past him instead and out of the flat door and disappearing down the stairs. Adams reported that the man wore a light overcoat and appeared to be a gentleman, Nellie appeared unmoved by this sudden apparition so Adams assumed that she must know this strange man. Once it was discovered that there was no problem with the pulley the pair began searching the apartment for Miss Gilchrist. On entering the dining room Nellie screamed, Miss Gilchrist was lying in front of the fireplace with a rug thrown over her head, the rug was saturated with blood. Adams immediately decided to pursue the strange man who had so calmly fled the scene, running out onto West Princes Street toward St George’s Road but there was no sign of the mysterious gentleman.

Marion Gilchrist's home as it looks today

Adams returned to Miss Gilchrist’s flat where Nellie had summoned a policeman, on viewing the body of Marion Gilchrist once more they discovered that she had been savagely beaten about the head with a bloodstained chair that lay by her side but appeared to still be breathing. Adams ran across the street to fetch a doctor, but Marion Gilchrist was pronounced dead on his return. Detectives arrived on the scene and conducted a search of the house. In the spare bedroom they found a gas lamp lit which Nellie swore had not been lit when she left the house just before 7 o clock. She had gone to collect a copy of the Evening Times for her mistress and has been out of the house for only 10 minutes. On the table below the gas lamp was one spent match and a box of Runaway matches, which Nellie claims she had never seen before. Also on this table was a wooden casket, a gold watch and chain, and a tray of jewellery. The casket had been smashed open and papers strew all over the floor. Nellie was asked if anything was missing and replied that a diamond crescent brooch was gone. A note was put out to all pawn shops to watch out for the brooch and a description of the strange man was circulated, he was described as ‘a man between 25 and 30 years of age, 5 8’ to 5 9’ in height with a slim build, dark hair, clean shaven, wearing a light grey overcoat and a dark cloth cap.’


The murder of Marion Gilchrist shook Glasgow. That a respectable 81 year old woman should be murdered in her West End flat in the ten minutes her maid left to collect a newspaper seemed unbelievable and a media frenzy ensued with increasing criticism of the actions of the police and a mounting pressure on the to solve the case quickly. With few leads and no sighting of the mystery assailant the police were begging to lose hope when a 14yr old girl named Mary Barrowman came forward to say she had been walking West Princes Street at about 10 past 7 on the night Miss Gilhrist has been murdered and had seen a man rush from Gilchrist’s close and dash along the street bumping in to Mary in the process. Mary was able to give a much fuller description of the man than either Nellie or Adams had provided. Her description differed so much from Adams’ description that the police decided that there must be two men involved in the crime.

Mary Barton’s description of this ‘second man’ was at follows: he was 28 – 30 years old, tall and thin, clean shaven with a nose turned slightly to one side wearing a fawn coloured overcoat, dark trousers and a tweed cloth cap. Soon after this description was published in the press the police were approached by a bicycle dealer named Allan McLean. McLean told the police that he was a member of a gambling club called The Sloper Club on India Street, and that a fellow member, a German Jew named Oscar Slater had been trying to sell a pawn ticket for a diamond crescent brooch matching the description of the one stolen from Marion Gilchrist’s apartment.

Oscar Slater right

On arriving at the address of Oscar Slater at 69 St Georges Rd they found that Slater had left, along with his mistress, that very day for Liverpool and then caught a ship, the Lusitania, bound for New York under the false names of Mr and Mrs Otto Sando. Suspicious of this the sudden departure, police traced Slater’s pawn ticket for the diamond brooch only to find that it was not in the least like the one stolen from Marion Gilchrist’s home and that it had been pawned on the 18^th of November, more than a month before the murder. However, the police were still convinced that Slater had committed the crime and made plans to have Slater arrested when he arrived in New York. The Lusitania docked in New York on January the 2^nd 1909 and Oscar Slater was arrested by New York police and placed in a cell in Tombs prison. Slater’s picture was published in the Glasgow papers, and suddenly a host of witnesses emerged claiming to have seen such a man in the vicinity of Marion Gilchrist’s house on the night of the murder, perhaps hoping to claim the £200 reward that had recently been offered for information in the case. The matter of the wrong brooch appeared to have been entirely forgotten.

Glasgow police decided to send their three witnesses, Mr Adams, Nellie Lambie, and Mary Barton to New York to identify the suspect, despite the fact that Mr Adams claimed he had not been wearing his spectacles when he saw the man in the lobby, Nellie telling two detectives that she would not be able to identify the man she saw in the lobby, and the man Mary Barton claimed to have seen in West Princes Street obviously not being Oscar Slater. However by the time the group set sail for New York, after being examined by police for a fortnight, the two girls’ descriptions mysteriously tallied. At trial Nellie and Mary both claimed to have shouted ‘That’s the man!’ on seeing Slater but a New York detective who was also present claimed that had asked him ‘is that the man?’ while pointing at Slater appeared to have never seen him before.

Nevertheless, the police, the public, and the press were convinced that Slater was the murderer. When it was found out that Slater would be arriving on aboard the Columbia coming up the river Clyde, immense crowds flocked to the riverside. The detectives were so concerned that Slater would be lynched on his return that they had him removed from the ship at Renfrew and then driven into Glasgow by car, as he was being lead from the ship one crew member rushed forward and kicked Slater.

The trial of Oscar Slater was fixed to start on Monday May 3^rd in Edinburgh. In the witness box Nellie Lambie and Mary Barton were once again positive that Slater was the man that they had seen on the night of the murder. Adams was still doubtful and a dozen more people testified to having seen Slater that night but who only came forward after they had seen Slater’s photograph in the paper. No mention was made of how Slater would have known Miss Gilchrist or how he would have gained entry to the apartment when Marion was so scared on burglars. The Lord advocate described slater as ‘gasping for money’ but on the very day of the murder Slater had raised £30 on the pawned brooch and had money in his accounts. For the defence, lawyer Mr McClure quoted the case of Adolf Beck. Ten women in London swore that Beck was the man who had stolen jewellery from them on various occasions. Two policemen also identified him. Beck was sent to prison for seven years. In actual fact the criminal was a man named Smith who did not look at all like Beck. Mr McClure asked the jury to be very careful in accepting the identification evidence in the Slater case.

At 4.55pm the jury retired to consider their verdict and returned one hour ten minutes later. They found Oscar Slater guilty of the murder. Slater protested: ‘You are convicting an innocent man!’ Oscar Slater was sentenced to be hanged on Thursday May 27^th and a shaken Slater was led out of the court room.

Two days before the date of the hanging Slater’s sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. The bewildered Slater then set about trying to solve a murder he didn’t commit from his cell. He seized upon the idea that a sweetheart of Nellie Lambie called Nugent was the murderer, although Nugent had been completely cleared by the police. He wrote rambling letters to his lawyer suggesting that a private detective be engaged to look into the case on his behalf and even asked that posters be published in various towns asking for any information that may help catch the real murderer.

Meanwhile many pundits including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle criticised the guilty verdict and the weak evidence against Slater. In August 1912 the famous creator of Sherlock Holmes published a booklet entitled The Case of Oscar Slater, where he suggested that some document, such as a will, and not the jewels, was the real object of the murderer’s quest and that the brooch, if in fact it had been stolen, was only a red herring. Conan Doyle was not the only person taking an active interest in the case, a Glasgow policeman named John Thomson Trench was also re-examining the evidence. Trench had been involved in the case from the very beginning and claimed that on the very night of the murder Nellie Lambie had named the man she saw in the landing and that it was not Oscar Slater, but after the clue of the pawned brooch this identification was dropped in favour of pursuing Slater as the murderer. Trench was firmly convinced that Slater had been wrongly accused.

In the winter of 1912 Trench was brought in on a murder in Broughty-Ferry which bore strikingly similarities to the murder of Marion Gilchrist (this murder is covered more fully in a previous entry). Miss Jean Milne, an elderly, wealthy woman living alone much like Marion Gilchrist was brutally murdered in her home with a poker. Although there was a great deal of money and jewellery in the house nothing appeared to have been stolen and there were no signs of forced entry. Eventually a Canadian man named Charles Warner was arrested for the crime but he had an alibi for the night of the murder and was released, the murder remains unsolved to this day. Could the perpetrator of this crime also be responsible for the murder of Marion Gilchrist?

Due to the persistence of Trench an enquiry was opening concerning Oscar Slater’s verdict. In this enquiry Trench stated that Nellie Lambie had, immediately following the murder, repeatedly referred to a Mr ‘A.B’ as being the man she saw in the lobby, and argued that Mary Barrowman’s sighting of Slater near the flat was false as she was not near Marion Gilchrist’s home at the time, dismissing it as ‘a cock-and-bull story of a young girl who was somewhat late in getting home and who wished to take the edge off by a little sensationalism.’ He also argued that the box of Runaway brand matches that were found in the flat were not available by the box but only by bulk, and none were found in Slater’s house.

For his efforts in clearing Slater Trench was dismissed from the Glasgow police and died only a few years later. The outbreak of war in 1914 seemed to end any hope for Oscar Slater, as one of his friends noted ‘who was going to bother about a German Jew in 1914.’ Oscar Slater was finally released from Peterhead in 1927 after serving 19 years for a murder he almost certainly did not commit. He later married, settled in Ayr and died in 1948.

The Murder of Jean Milne, Broughty Ferry 1912

THE COURIER, MONDAY NOVEMBER 4^TH 1912

West Ferry is the scene of a fiendish murder.

Miss Jean Milne, a lady of independent means, was found lying in her blood in her mansion-house, Elmgrove, yesterday morning, and there was all the evidence of a violent struggle.
The old lady’s face and head bore frightful injuries. Her face was a mass of bruises and clotted blood, and near the body was a poker which had been used with such tremendous force that the knob had been knocked off and blood and hair still adhered to the weapon. After completing his work, the murderer had tied Miss Milne’s legs together, covered the body with a sheet and before leaving he cut the telephone wire. The murder is supposed to have taken place three weeks ago and the murder is still at large.

Elmgrove is a mansion-house of some pretensions, and stands in its own grounds, which are considerable. It is situated at the junction of Grove Road and Strathern Road, and was bought by the deceased’s brother, the late Mr James Milne, who was for many years a tobacco manufacturer in Dundee. Mr Milne died eight years ago, since then Miss Milne has lived alone.

Jean Milne

A wealthy spinster, Miss Milne’s habits and mode of living were thought peculiar and somewhat eccentric. She showed a marked preference for her own society. Friends made many efforts to get her to visit them, but the invitations were always declined with the remark, ‘I just want to live my own life in my own way.’ None the less the deceased was known to a wide circle and was highly respected. She spent much on travel, frequently visiting London and the continent while living for many years without the assistance of a gardener or a maid at home. One friend remarked that the grounds of the impressive mansion had fallen into disrepair: “Time was when she had a maid and a gardener but for many a day up to the time of her death she conducted all her own affairs. The garden became a wilderness and believe me it was an eerie experience to walk up the dark avenue to the silent house.

When at home Miss Milne was almost daily in Dundee where she lunched and had afternoon tea before returning to West Ferry. Her friends more than one remarked to her upon her solitary lifestyle, but Miss Milne, though a small, fragile woman was not afraid and appeared to enjoy the solitary life that she led. One thing is certain that when at home she had next to no social intercourse. She made no visits to the few friends that she had, and she extended no hospitality at Elmgrove, whose interior was something of a mystery to all.

A friend told reporters: ‘I could not tell you how many time I have advised Miss Milne not to shut herself up in that big house. It was unthinkable that a lady well up in years should prefer solitude. She was quite fearless and laughed when I displayed concern about her.’

‘I remember some time ago Miss Milne telling me of an incident which showed how plucky she was. For many years, she had been in the habit of sitting in her dining room writing or reading. The blinds of this room were never drawn, and she sat there in full view of anyone in the garden. Well, one night while she was reading she became conscious of the fact that she was being watched. Lifting her head quickly she saw a man at the window, his face pressed hard against the glass. It was a trying experience, but Miss Milne was in no way alarmed. Rising she walked to the window and coolly ordered the man to ‘clear out’. She admitted afterwards that the sight of the man at the window gave her a start, but she resolutely declined to draw the blinds or get someone to live with her.’

The tragedy at Elmgrove was discovered in a peculiar way. Miss Milne generally didn’t care to be disturbed, on one occasion when the postman called with her letters – despite her solitary life she maintained a very extensive correspondence – she challenged him for ringing the doorbell with the remark: ‘Don’t you know that I keep a letter-box at the back for my correspondence?’. The postman took the hint and from that day all letters and documents addressed to the lady were deposited in a mailbox fixed to the back door.

Mr James Sidders, the postman, started to notice that the letters he was placing in the box were accumulating and thought that something may be amiss. However, fearful of arousing Miss Milne’s short temper the postman decided that it was better to continue to push the letters in the box, supposing that Miss Milne has most probably gone on a short holiday and would be back to clear the mailbox soon. Yet he was surprised that Miss Milne had not communicated with the post office, remembering that she was a woman of most precise habits and that her invariable custom had been to instruct the postal authorities when she went on holiday to forward her mail to London or continental hotels, and she never failed to send a postcard advising of her return to West Ferry.

As the mailbox became more stuffed it was decided that an attempt should be made to get in touch with Miss Milne by telephone, but there was no response despite repeated attempts. The postman then alerted the police who were reluctant to force entry into the house as some time ago Miss Milne’s absence had given rise to fears for her wellbeing, the house was entered by the authorities and everything was found in order. Miss Milne had been on holiday and was greatly indignant on her return to discover that the police had entered her home.

Despite this the police did eventually visit, they found all the windows on the ground floor fastened and the doors secured. A window was forced open and the police entered only to discover the body of Miss Milne lying in the hall, not far from the foot of the stairs, blood stains were everywhere and the head of the body was fearfully bruised. Nearby lay the fifteen inch long steel poker which had been wielded with such terrible effect on the body of the old lady, still covered in tufts of grey hair and clotted blood.

An examination of the body showed that Miss Milne had been repeatedly struck by the murderer, there was one terrible scar on her chin and the skull was dented in several parts, the face was a mass of congealed blood with the eyes protruding from the sockets, her set of artificial teeth had also been broken in the struggle, part of them were found near the body and the rest on the stairs. Her legs had been tied with the cord of a window blind and the telephone wires had been cut to prevent all possibility of making an effort for assistance. Near the body various articles of furniture has been upset: vases were smashed and high upon the globe of a gas bracket was a lamp bespattered with Miss Milne’s blood.

At first it occurred to the authorities that the tragedy might have been due to Miss Milne having fallen down the stairs. The murderer seems to have supposed that the authorities might have arrived at this conclusion because the body bore evidence of having been dragged in order to make it appear as if Miss Milne has fallen over the balustrade. Yet this clumsy attempt as concealment was hampered by the murderer leaving the murder weapon behind and by tying the victims feet and finally covering the body with a white sheet.

It was supposed that the crime had taken place nearly three weeks ago, as the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. When police opened the letter box they found that all letters prior to the 14^th of October (three weeks ago) had been opened by Miss Milne while all letters after this date had been untouched. So accustomed were Miss Milne’s neighbours to her habits of quietly departing for a lengthy holiday that no one was seriously alarmed at the fact that no lights showed from the house at nights. This accounts for the delay in discovering the crime.

It is thought that the author of the crime must have been aware of Miss Milne’s solitary habits; one theory is that the murderer had concealed himself in the house while Miss Milne was gardening and on her return to the house had taken her unawares and stunned her with the poker. Friends said:
‘I shall always remember her as a cheery little lady with a good word for all, although she resented intrusion upon her seclusion.’

The case remains unsolved to this day