Podcast Sparks Probe Into Mystery Serial Killer 'Bible John'

Scottish police are reexamining three unsolved murders attributed to the country's most notorious alleged serial killer following an award-winning BBC podcast that suggested a police coverup. Journalist Audrey Gillan's Bible John: Creation of the Serial Killer, released in late 2022, told how Helen Puttock, Jemima MacDonald, and Patricia Docker were each killed after leaving Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom in 1968 and 1969, per the Independent. Police hunted for a killer dubbed Bible John because he quoted scripture while sharing a taxi with Puttock and her sister shortly before Puttock was killed on Oct. 30, 1969. Police never made an arrest. However, the series claimed the police chief in charge of the investigation knew and concealed Bible John's true identity.

According to the podcast, evidence pointed to the man being John Irvine McInnes, the cousin of senior police officer Jimmy McInnes, but senior police chief Joe Beattie, a good friend of Jimmy McInnes, ensured his name was kept out of official records. Police interviewed more than 7,000 people, taking 4,000 statements, in one of Scotland's largest investigations ever. By the time John Irvine McInnes' name finally surfaced, he was already dead. He died by suicide in 1980. His body was exhumed in 1995 so his DNA could be compared with a sample taken from Puttock's clothing but the result was inconclusive. Still, the detectives who revisited the case in 1995 said McInnes would've been arrested if he'd been alive, per the BBC.

A rep for Police Scotland now says "we are assessing the contents of a recent podcast in consultation with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service," per the Guardian. The rep adds "any new information" about the deaths of Puttock, MacDonald, and Docker "will be investigated." Family members of the victims say police informed them of their plans. "That was a bit of a bombshell," MacDonald's youngest son, Allan Mottley, tells the BBC. "I never imagined that they would get to this." Still, "I am not expecting that much, to be honest," says Mottley. He notes police "might openly admit these murders were not investigated properly in the first place and we might get an apology." (More cold cases stories.)