Bible John: The beginning of a serial killer's reign of terror

The facts of the case are simple and well known. Between February 1968 and October 1969, three young women were brutally murdered in Glasgow. There was strong evidence pointing to a serial killer.

All three victims had been dancing at the Barrowland Ballroom. They were all beaten and strangled. Each was a brunette aged between 25 and 32 and a mother, and all three had been menstruating at the time they died. They were all escorted home by their killer and murdered not far from their residences. The killer removed their handbags, a detail I will highlight next week.

Influenced by the BBC podcasts put together last year by journalist Audrey Gillan, I am going to concentrate on the often forgotten victims of the murders. While everyone knows the name of Bible John, how many of us can remember those of Patricia Docker (below), Jemima MacDonald and Helen Puttock?

In her researches, Gillan found a strong streak of misogyny on the part of the investigating police officers, as I will describe below. I want to show how the women suffered the most appalling treatment and give an idea of the effect their deaths had on their families.

Glasgow in 1968 was a far different city from now. De-industrialisation was ongoing and architectural brutality was the order of the day with the M8 tearing through the city centre. The full “overspill” policy of the Corporation (what eventually became the city council) hadn’t quite succeeded in pushing the citizenry to the boundaries, though that process was well under way, and housing schemes such as Easterhouse and Drumchapel were already by-words for outer -city degradation.

Unemployment and poverty, ill-health and deprivation were endemic and violence was seemingly written into Glasgow’s DNA. Youth inter-gang violence was particularly horrific, with razor slashings and stabbings almost a daily occurrence.

The names of Glasgow’s youth gangs were known nationally – in 1968, the Glasgow Herald named four Easterhouse gangs, the Drummie, Pak, Rebel and Toi, for orchestrating “a reign of terror” around the scheme. In July that year, the entertainer Frankie Vaughan played the unlikely role of peacemaker between the Easterhouse gangs, with some success but it was short-lived.

As for Glasgow’s underworld, the brutal activities of enforcers such as Jimmy Boyle made front-page news. It was a violent city but the vast majority of the populace kept well clear of the gangs and gangsters.

Glasgow’s obsession with dancing was ever prevalent, and there were ballrooms such as the Locarno, Majestic and Barrowland, although the largest venue, the Dennistoun Palais, had closed in 1966.

Going to the dancing once or twice a week was a ritual for many people, and by and large the venues were pretty safe, with bouncers always on the alert for possible trouble. Dancing was seen as an escape from the miseries of everyday life and even in giant venues like Barrowland, women could feel relatively secure. Until Bible John arrived (artist's impression below).

As I shall show next week, he did not get that name until after the third killing, and while it could seem incredible now, back then people – male and female – continued to merrily attend the dancing at Barrowland even after the first murder took place on the night of February 22-23, 1968.

A month earlier, Glasgow had been hit by a hurricane and there were still plenty of signs of the damage inflicted by winds gusting up to 100mph, including tonnes of rubble on the streets. But the press soon had another sensation to move on to: foul and bloody murder.

Patricia Docker was a 25-year-old auxiliary nurse at Mearnskirk Hospital who worked four night shifts a week. She was in the throes of being divorced by her husband Alex, an RAF aircraftman who she had married at the age of 19.

The couple had a son, also Alexander – then known as Sandy but now called Alex – but the marriage broke down, especially after the RAF posted them to Cyprus in 1965. The frankly misogynistic official police report on the murder doesn’t mince words, alleging that Patricia Docker “appears to have been having affairs with Greek Cypriot persons and United Nations personnel”, though no evidence is presented to back this allegation.

READ MORE: Glasgow, Bible John, and our enduring fascination with murderers among us

The couple returned to the UK in April 1967 and Alex Docker was posted to RAF Digby in Lincolnshire. Patricia went home to Glasgow where her father John Wilson, a former RAF engineer, and her mother Pauline lived in Langside. Pauline Wilson was also a nurse at Mearnskirk and looked after young Sandy when Patricia was at work, while her father was employed by an electrical firm.

The police report records that Alex Docker visited his wife in October 1967 but did not stay the night, the purpose of his visit being to discuss divorce. So by early 1968 Patricia was completely estranged from her husband and while still technically married, she was free to make new relationships if she chose to. But there is no evidence that she did,and her sole recreation appears to have been a weekly night out dancing.

This is where the police report enters the realm of speculation. It states: “The deceased appears to enjoy the company of men and liked the attention of men. She was an only child and apparently rather spoiled. She did go dancing, at the Locarno, Majestic and Barrowland, and probably on occasions had dates and dance-hall escorts.”

They might just as well have said “this woman was looking for trouble” but she wasn’t – she may have been looking for fun or to start a relationship but there’s no evidence of the latter. Patricia was an attractive, vivacious woman, about 5ft 3ins tall and slimly built, and by all accounts she dearly loved dancing. That night, she dressed in a favourite mustard-coloured dress and wore a duffel coat with a fur collar to ward off the cold.

Very little is known about what happened. For whatever reason – to re-assure them about her safety, perhaps – Patricia told her parents she was going to the Majestic in Hope Street rather than the more downmarket Barrowland in the Gallowgate.

The venue hosted its popular “over-25s only” night that Thursday. It was an evening where discretion was everything, as many of the participants were married and out for some fun without their spouses.

No evidence was forthcoming about Patricia meeting any man but early the next morning her naked body was found by a workman in the doorway of a lock-up garage in Carmichael Place, a few hundred yards away from her home at Langside Place. She had been beaten about her face and head, and been strangled with a ligature, possibly a belt. There was no sign of her clothing or her handbag or watch.

Uniformed police officers and plain-clothed detectives rushed to the scene and in their eagerness some possible evidence was trampled over, something that would not happen these days. It was reported that an ambulanceman who attended the scene recognised the victim as a nurse at Mearnskirk.

Her parents had not been too concerned by Patricia’s failure to return home, thinking their daughter was probably staying overnight with friends. But as rumours of the finding of a woman’s body spread, John Wilson is said to have sought out the early edition of an evening newspaper which contained a dramatic account of the discovery. He contacted the police and by mid-afternoon had identified Patricia’s body.

A post-mortem examination confirmed the cause of death as strangulation.

It seems remarkable in hindsight, but the police did not exactly fall over themselves to investigate Patricia’s murder. Door-to-door inquiries yielded only one female teacher’s evidence that in the early hours she had heard a woman cry out “leave me alone”.

Bus staff and the taxi trade were contacted but no driver came forward with any testimony. There was a sighting of a young woman getting into a light-coloured car but this was swiftly eliminated, as were staff at Mearnskirk Hospital and Patricia’s husband.

Witnesses were sought at the Majestic ballroom – the police report shows they concentrated on that venue first because Patricia had told her father that was where she was going. Inquiries then moved to Barrowland and though no witness statements were preserved, it seems the detectives were soon certain Patricia had danced there with two or three men, but there were no sightings of her leaving the venue.

Police widened their search for Patricia’s clothing. An underwater unit of divers recovered her handbag from the nearby River Cart, and divers later also found the bracelet of her watch. A pair of panties was also found but her mother could not identify them positively as belonging to her daughter.

The Wilsons had to grieve for their only child even as press attention ramped up. The Daily Record printed hundreds of posters adorned with a picture of Patricia, seeking information. None was forthcoming and the trail soon went cold, with the team of detectives moving onto other homicides and violent crimes – there were plenty of those in the UK’s murder capital.

But the murder ripped apart the Wilson and Docker families. Patricia’s husband came a few days later and removed his son to a new life in Lincolnshire, where his new partner raised Sandy as her own.

Audrey Gillan persuaded Sandy/Alex to give his account for her podcast series. Now in his 60s, he wrote: “I can almost picture my mother’s laughing face but the detail is too fuzzy. There is no firm visual imprint. I can’t see, in my mind’s eye, a face. The few photographs of Pat I have only elicit a weak sense of recognition, if at all.

“In a way this whole thing is like a little box inside my mind that’s labelled ‘Do not open’ – and inside that box are two things that really concerned me.

“It’s the horror of the death of my mother – my imagination going to places where I wish it wouldn’t, the last moments of my mother’s life and what her thoughts must have been. The knowledge that I was a matter of yards away from where this happened distresses me greatly.

“And the other thing is my grandparents, whose life was hollowed out immediately after this event. They lost their beloved only child suddenly and then, subsequently, me, their grandson, a matter of days later.”

A moving and sombre account of what murder does to families. And Bible John had only just started.