Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - "Bible John" Pt. 2

Episode Date: October 23, 2017

Bible John left gruesomely specific crime scenes. This week, Greg and Vanessa scrutinize this killer’s disturbing methods for any semblance of meaning. Were the kills sadistic, predatory, or spurred by rage at encountering an “unclean” menstruating woman? And how, despite the fact that the Glasgow police interviewed over 20,000 people, did Bible John evade capture?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode includes dramatizations and discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Scotland, 1960s. While the country was just beginning to recover from economic depression, high unemployment, and a general sense of national gloom in the wake of World War II, a new and terrifying nightmare was surfacing that would shake the country to its core. Well, if you don't go to bed soon, Bible John will get you. so off, I wouldn't be surprised if he was Bible John himself.

These were just a few of the phrases that popped up from the Bible John phenomenon in Glasgow, Scotland in the late 1960s. He was the most well-known man in the country and the most feared. Bible John, the mysterious serial killer who took the lives of three young women and would generate the biggest police manhunt Scotland had ever known. But even the greatest detectives in Scotland were stumped. Chief Investigator Detective Superintendent Joe Beattie said, quote, It is incredible that this man has alluded us.

There must be many people who know someone who looks like this artist's impression. The man walks about, travels on buses, goes to local newsagents for papers and cigarettes, eats out, works, and does things any other person would do. Someone somewhere knows him and could give us a clue to his identity. End quote. So what happened to Bible John? And why did his brief career as a serial killer caused such an uproar that it became a national phenomenon? Hi, I'm Greg Polson, and this is serial killers.

Today we're going to continue a deep dive into the story of Bible John. I'm here with my co-host of Vanessa Richardson. Now, Vanessa's not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but she's done a lot of research for the show. Hi, everyone. We'd like to ask a quick favor. Would you leave a five-star review of serial killers on your favorite podcast directory? It seems so simple, but it really helps us out. And don't forget to subscribe while you're there because a new episode comes out every Monday.

You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast. And on Twitter at Parcast Network. A quick note. In this week's episode, all quotes will be performed by actors. However, these lines are quoted from primary research sources and presented exactly as those people stated them. Now let's get back to the twisted psyche of Bible John. Last week, we provided a brief introduction to the victims and M.O. of the Scottish serial killer known as Bible John.

He was a vicious serial killer that struck Glasgow's Barreland Ballroom in the late 1960s. He targeted women, usually mothers, who were on their period. He seduced them, and while escorting them home, viciously strangled, raped, and murdered them, leaving their partially new bodies to be discovered on the streets. perhaps the most curious detail of the kills is that he left a used sanitary napkin on or near each of the three bodies. And of course, the question is why. Why these women? Why this crime? And what exactly was going on inside his head? Well, last week we learned, based on an eyewitness testimony, that Bible John was raised religiously conservative and that he looked down on women for acting what he

believed to be loose. But we also determined that Bible John was probably not as a as religiously motivated, as his moniker makes him out to be, as his references to the Bible were not so spot on. Not to mention the fact that he killed and raped three women, not exactly a religiously moral action. And as such, it seems more likely using religion as a justification for his crimes rather than a motivation for them. Would you agree? Absolutely. We also can't forget that based on the way he acted on the night of his final murder, that of Helen Pudduck in October of 1969, that these murders were perhaps,

perhaps his first. That's right. Though he displayed general confidence in the Beryl and ballroom, he hesitated when introducing himself and tended to give misleading or contradictory personal details, thus marking him as inexperienced in lying. Something that serial killers typically are very apt at. But despite his inexperience in killing, he certainly executed a complex and specific murder. seduction, rape, strangulation by pantyhose, carefully arranged bodies, and the final touch of a used sanitary napkin to mark the scene. Not the sign of a spur of the moment kill, that's for sure. Agreed. But the question, of course, is why this scene? What did it all mean as a whole? And how can it give us a clearer look into the mind of the killer known as Bible John?

These are the exact questions that the Glasgow police were trying to find answers to following the murder of Bible John's third victim, Helen Puttie. and luckily they were able to use Howen's sister Jeannie Langford as a witness in narrowing down the search. And while the 1960s Glasgow police were putting together their profile, why don't we take a stab at a profile of our own? Why don't we start by breaking down the actual kills themselves? Sounds like a plan. Now, there was a lot going on with the Bible John murders. First, there was the fact that he strangled them with their own stockings.

Then there was that he raped them and left their bloodied. menstrual napkins tucked carefully nearby. There was also the nude bodies and missing handbags. It seems to me like they were all very well planned and enacted kills. It definitely seems like that to me too. Well, what does such a complex kill indicate to you? I think he probably spent a lot of time thinking about these murders and how he wanted to commit them. As we already discussed, these were probably Bible John's first kills, so he likely wasn't yet at a point where he had developed rituals over the course of killing. Instead, my guess is that he had a clear idea of how he wanted the murder to go and what he wanted the bodies

to look like when he was done. Somehow that he was thinking tirelessly about such a disturbing scene prior to the kills is even more creepy than if he had slowly developed the rituals over time. But why this particular scene? No, wait a minute. That was going to be my question to you. Well, it's hard to say for sure what was going on in Bible John's head, since he was never caught and there are no interviews with him. As a whole, the scenes, he left behind seem inexplicable, merely the product of a twisted mind. But of course, just because it seems inexplicable doesn't mean it is. I think we may be able to get pretty deep into Bible John's head based on these details. Those are the words I like to hear. Let's start with a specific

method of killing. He strangled his victims, right? That's right. In fact, he strangled them to death with their own stockings. That's not a pleasant way to go. Vanessa, I'm not sure there's any pleasant way to go when we're talking about serial killers. True. So, strangulation with their own stockings. What do you think? Was it a fetish or perhaps just out of convenience? Well, it could be both, but given he killed and raped them,

he was probably considerably stronger than the three women. Killing them with his bare hands probably wouldn't have been too challenging, especially considering that you mentioned he was thought to be around six feet tall. That's probably true. To me, this signals his desire to assert authority over the women. He could have used a slightly more indirect method of killing, like a knife or a blunt object, but he chose to literally squeeze the life out of his victims. Yikes.

This falls pretty in line with a sadistic killer, one who derives immense joy from the pain of their victims. As sadistic killers typically use very hands-on methods of killing, as it allows them to feel like they're having the most active role in the kill. Robert Britton, who published an in-depth article on sadistic murderers, says that sadistic killers usually kill by strangulation, as it offers them total control over the victim. They're excited by the sight of suffering and revel in how helpless their victim is beneath their grasp. Another interesting statistic is that most strangulation victims, across murders as a whole, tend to be women. About 75% of strangulation victims are females and infants, and in addition to that, strangulation makes up about 59% of serial sexual murders.

So Bible John was not so unique in his method of murder. But why is strangulation so prevalent? Well, one suggestion is that in the case of rape murders, strangulation occurs in part because the victim is struggling during the rape and the attacker strangles the victim during the rape in order to subdue them. So it's out of convenience? To an extent. But I think in the case of someone like Bible John, who clearly has a whole ritual set up

around his kill, the strangulation might be more significant than mere coincidence. I think it probably has more to do with exerting control over his victims. Like Robert Britton said, one study on sexual murders which analyzed murder-seeing behaviors determined that in sexual murders, strangulation is typically associated with a deliberately cruel murder and that it is indicative of a murder pattern called the Predator. What's the Predator murder pattern? Well, it's pretty much what it sounds like, a killer who targets a specific type, often with an additional sexual motivation.

It's not a murder of opportunity or a random encounter. It's deliberate and it's brutal. Hmm, well, based on how Bible John targeted and seduced his victims, I would definitely agree that he falls under the predator category. We'll return to our story in just a moment. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming,

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And now, let's continue the story. There's one more study on murders who kill via strangulation that I think really applies to Bible John in particular. It's a study done by psychologist Maurice Godwin. who suggested that ligature strangulation indicates a strong emotionally driven rage against the victim. In other words, the killer is launching a personal attack on the victim. Well, that does seem to link pretty well to what we've learned about Bible John so far.

Last week, we talked about how Bible John's upbringing with religious conservatism likely fueled an intense hatred of female promiscuity that motivated or at least influenced his murders. It seemed like Bible John's choice of strangulation only further cemented the idea that he felt a personal responsibility to kill these women for their apparent sins. I mean, he even called the Barlin Ballroom a den of iniquity. There was clearly at least an element of emotional rage aimed at the victims. While that's true, we also can't ignore the sadism aspect of the rape and strangulation.

That's right. Of course, it's not just one or the other, even with serial killers, or perhaps even more so with serial killers, the answer to why they killed in the way they did is never black and white. The fact that Bible John strangled his victims suggests he was both indulging in a sexual fantasy and asserting his twisted brand of morals. And perhaps that's what made the killing process all the more enjoyable to him, because he, excuse my metaphor, was able to kill two birds with one stone.

Well, Bible John is a complex killer, to be sure. And let me remind you that Bible John also strangled his victims with their own stockings. That definitely indicates to me a more sexually motivated murder, rather than one rooted in maintaining his so-called set of morals. So yet again, we're getting the sense that Bible John's religious link was more likely an excuse rather than a motivation. The fact that Bible John left his victim's bodies stripped on the streets and posed in a certain way also indicates to me that his kill was more sexual in nature.

That's right. Last week, we also talked about the difference between staging and posing and how Bible John's crime scenes were most definitely posed. in other words, arranged to fulfill his fantasy rather than confuse the crime scene. Right. And we also determined the nature of the arrangement was sexual in nature and likely planned far ahead of time. So what do you think that says about him? Why would he leave his victim's bodies nude and posed like that? What was he trying to accomplish? I think this yet again indicates that Bible John was more motivated by fulfilling a sexual fantasy rather than enacting some sort of religious punishment. If he believed he was killing in order to punish these women to enact some sort of will of God, so to speak,

the kill probably would not have been as overtly sexual in nature, especially considering he took a very hands-on approach to killing his victims. My assumption is that he likely took great joy in the kill. Like you said before, it seems to be more common for serial killers who kill hands-on and pose the body to have a strong personal sexual motivation, which seems off for someone who would be condemning. the women for adultery or promiscuity. Yeah, it's one thing for the killer to think,

I'm raping you because that's what you deserve and this is a punishment. That's the mark of someone potentially crazy. But it's a whole other thing for them to kill their victim while raping them solely because it excites them, because that implies a more intentional and sadistic method of killing, rather than someone who is not entirely attached to reality. So you think Bible John knew exactly what he was doing when he raped and killed those three women? That it was completely wrong, but he had. enjoyed it anyway? That's my assumption, at least. Wow. He just shot up on my list of worst

serial killers. Unfortunately, that's not an uncommon characteristic among serial killers that rape their victims. There's actually a fairly in-depth psychological study published on the subject of sexually motivated murderers and their behaviors. Really? What did they have to say? Well, in the study entitled Ritual Signature in Serial Sexual Homicide, the authors spoke on the strange actions performed by sexually driven murders. They wrote, quote, Investigators concluded that these seemingly unnecessary activities in sexual murders served a psychological purpose. The offender needed to engage in such actions to feel sexually gratified, killing the victim was not sufficient. If that was the case for Bible John,

that means that not just the fact that he raped his victims, but also the way he left the bodies was all part of a larger method of gaining sexual satisfaction. I think so. And it also indicates to me that Bible John was most definitely a sadistic killer if he needed the added action of rape to feel satisfied with the kill. And then there's the final piece of the Bible John puzzle. The menstrual napkins? Right.

Certainly is a unique touch. Do you have any idea on why he might have left the bloody napkins on and near the bodies? Well, there are several cases of female crimes driven by the... the menstrual cycle. There aren't too many studies on male crimes relating to female periods. However, what we can look at is that idea of the menstrual napkins as part of Bible John's killing ritual. I'm going to refer back to the study from before, ritual and signature in serial sexual homicide. Okay. Basically, the psychologist analyzed the behaviors of sexual murderers and concluded that the seemingly unnecessary actions that the killer underwent, such as posing the body

a certain way or leaving menstrual napkins on the scene of the crime, served a psychological purpose, to quote the study again, quote, such crime-seen behaviors, which more often than not are repetitive, have been found to be an outgrowth of the perpetrator's deviant sexual fantasies, wherein the murder and the repetitive acts are part of the offender's sexual arousal pattern, end quote. So, in other words, the nude bodies and bloody napkins were a part of the sexual fantasy that Bible John was enacting.

I think it definitely leans more towards that than an intention to shock onlookers, as was the presumed case with the Jack the Ripper victims who were posed with their nude legs spread in public to draw attention. Given the fact that Bible John was a rapist who killed his victims with strangulation and killed with a very personal motivation, it seems more likely to me that each piece of the scene was meant to sexually satisfy him in some way. Another interesting conclusion from that study was, quote, because the repetitive ritualistic acts stem from the offenders' fantasies, which are somewhat distinctive for each individual, it has been suggested that fantasy-driven rituals are also unique,

perhaps as unique as an individual's signature. So what you're telling me is that Bible John's quirk is just that? A quirk? I think in this case, it's hard to come to a real concrete conclusion as to why he was so obsessed with female menstruation. We can speculate, but it would all be just that, speculation. However, what we can say fairly concretely is that the menstrual napkins served part of the larger sexual fantasy that Bible John was indulging. I'm curious, though, if we were to speculate, what do you think the reasons for the menstrual napkin might be?

Well, like I said before, there aren't really any psychological studies on men committing crimes because of a woman's menstrual cycle. Since there aren't any psychological studies on it, maybe we ought to check out what his namesake has to say about menstruation. Back to the Bible then? All right. Well, there is one section about menstruation in Leviticus. Quote, whenever a woman has her menstrual period, she will be ceremonially unclean for seven days. Anyone who touches her during that time will be unclean until evening. Anything on which the woman lies or sits during the time of her period will be unclean. If a man has sexual intercourse with her and her blood touches him, her menstrual impurity will be transmitted to him.

He will remain unclean for seven days, and any bed on which he lies will be unclean, end quote. These sound more like guidelines for cleanliness than anything else. Yeah, and if he was following the Bible for this, he probably wouldn't be having sex with, quote, unquote, impure women, since it would make him impure too. But how did he know when he was targeting his victims that they were menstruating? I actually have a theory on that. Maybe Bible John slept with many women he met at the Barrowland Ballroom. not just his three victims. During a sexual encounter, he would obviously discover she was menstruating, which may have been a trigger for Bible John. If he thought menstruating was impure, encountering that impurity could have motivated him to kill. And remember, people went to the

Barreland Ballroom looking to cheat, because the women he slept with were likely cheating on their husbands, they wouldn't have been likely to report their encounter, especially in the more conservative 1960s. Well, that's really interesting. Do you have any alternate ideas? Honestly, I think we can't rule out that this obsession with female menstruation was just a personal fetish. Sure, there are a lot of things that we can explain with psychology and environmental influences, but some things are just strange personal tendencies. It may have just been a part of his killing ritual, or something he felt compelled to do for no other reason that he wanted to.

I guess you can't psychoanalyze everything. You really can't. Okay. So we've broken down each of the individual pieces of Bible John's murder. strangulation, posing, nudity, and the obsession with menstrual pads, all of which seemed to lead to the idea that his primary motivation and killing was to fulfill a certain sexual fantasy. Is that correct? Spot on. And more than that, he was a sadistic killer who took joy in his victim's pain. Right.

We know from interviews of serial killers that they usually feel an immense high from killing and causing pain. So if Bible John was motivated by sadism, that wouldn't send him apart much. from other killers. Still, there seemed to be something different with Bible John in comparison to psychopathic killers like Ted Bundy or Charles Manson. But what is it? Well, last episode we tossed around the idea that Bible John may not be a psychopath, per se, but someone instead who is motivated by emotion and sexual drive. Rather than enjoying killing for the purpose of killing, he enjoyed killing because it played into a sexual fantasy of his. Which we seem to have made pretty concrete based on our breakdown of Bible John's crime scene.

Exactly. Does that make a difference though? A psychopath can still be motivated by sex, right? Well, according to interviews with psychopaths, it's often found that psychopaths experience sex differently than the average person. More specifically, they typically see sex as a method of gaining or maintaining power rather than an emotional experience. That isn't to say they can't feel ecstasy, but it's more about power than anything else.

Well, we did recently come to the conclusion that Bible John likely enjoyed being in control during the kill, hence the strangulation and the confident method of seduction. Based on Jeannie Langford's account, he seemed to look down on the people at the ballroom, perhaps even enjoyed acting high and mighty and looking down upon amongst a group of people he believed were sinners. Yes, but given how he laid the scene out after the murder, it makes me think that it played into a bigger sexual fantasy that went beyond merely, exerting control over his victims. Looking at the scene that Bible John created,

it seems clear that he had parapheria. Paraphilia. Now, what's that? Well, basically, it means someone who's aroused by atypical sexual situations. Oh, like a fetish? Right. Fetishes, sexual fantasies, that sort of thing.

But the term has taken on a more negative connotation over the years. Even the DSM-4-TR, the go-to manual for diagnosing psychological conditions, defines the word with negative words. According to them, paraphilia is, quote, recurrent, intense, sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors generally involving non-human objects, the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one's partner, or children or other non-consenting persons that occur over a period of

six months and cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Oh, that's kind of a mouthful. Yeah. The DSM4TR goes on to list several types of parapheria, one of which is sadism. Ah, I see where you're going with this. We already know that sexual pleasure played a big role in Bible John's kills, not just because of the rape, but also because of the way he left the bodies at the scene. Naked and exposed. Erotic, almost, if not for the fact that the women were murdered.

Can we go back to that DSM definition for a second? I just want to make sure we hit all the check marks before we label our killer. Of course. So one, recurring sexual fantasies or behaviors that are usually non-consenting and cause pain to the partner. That's definitely a check. One, he raped his victims while killing them. And two, he strangled and left the bodies with evidence of a struggle. Agreed.

Especially considering our conversation earlier about how we probably thought deeply about these fantasies before enacting them. Right. Well, that's criterion A. Criterion B is that the fetishes carry on for at least six months. and cause the individual to be socially and or occupationally stunted. That one's trickier. Considering we don't know exactly who Bible John is, we can't say for sure whether or not it impacted his life,

since we don't know what his daily life is like. That's true. But I think we can make some assumptions. Okay. First, we know that the murders occurred over the span of about a year and a half. Considering his three murders are nearly identical in terms of execution, it feels safe to say that he probably held this fetish with him the entire time. Agreed. And what about that second condition, that it impacted his daily life?

That one, like you said, is a bit more difficult, but I think we can make one pretty accurate statement. Oh? Well, you said that his case was the biggest manhunt in Scotland's history, didn't you? Indeed, I did. Well, if the police were spending all their time trying to track you down, going so far as posting a supposedly accurate picture of your face everywhere, you probably weren't going to have an easy life. That's true. It would have been pretty hard for you. It would have been pretty hard him to go about his daily life if everyone knew his face was the face of a wanted killer. I guess his fetish did have a pretty big impact. Our story will continue in a moment after a brief message.

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Now the story continues. And speaking about Bible John's infamy, perhaps this is a good time to check back with the 1960s Glasgow Police. I almost forgot. Well, let me tell you. No one in Scotland at the time of Bible John's murders forgot about the massive police investigation that ensued following the murder of Helen Puddick. The hunt for Bible John was the biggest police manhunt in Scotland's history.

Based on the information Jeannie Langford gave them about the night of Helen's murder, they traced every lead they could. They quizzed over 300 barbers about men with red hair. They talked to nearly 200 tailors about the particular suit that Bible John had been wearing. They interviewed over 5,000. people in Glasgow and the surrounding areas, and another 4,000 people came forward with potential information. Over 50,000 statements were taken during the course of the investigation. The investigation was so large and sprawling that they often brought the same man in for questioning more than once.

It became such a problem that they actually began issuing innocence cards to people who had been questioned by the police and cleared so as to avoid bringing them in multiple times. Wow, ID cards to prove you aren't a serial killer. That's a new one. And they even sent undercover police to the Barrelin ballroom in disguise as dancers, an attempt to find witnesses or perhaps even the man himself. They searched for years, but in the end, they never learned more than how to tango. Perhaps that was because after the third murder, the strange serial killer vanished without a trace. Many experts have said that it's odd for a serial killer to be so violent and specific

in their crimes and then to suddenly stop. Well, perhaps the killer stopped for a practical reason, like the police were publishing his face everywhere. Well, that's right. The identicate picture of Bible John was, and still is, one of the most famous pictures in Scotland. Jeannie herself said that the picture was a spot-on drawing of the killer in question. And like we talked about before,

if you were walking around with the most famous mug in the country, it would probably be pretty hard to seduce women without suspicion. Yeah, it's probably more likely that he had to go into hiding after becoming that infamous. What did people of the time think? There's got to be more theories. Well, some people thought he fled the country or that he was already in jail for some other unrelated crime. Some people even suggested that he joined the military and went abroad. After some time, the frenzy surrounding Bible John just faded into the dust until 2007. That's when the arrest of a killer named Peter Tobin,

shook loose the pages of Glasgow's serial killer history. Peter Tobin was a sexual assaulter who served multiple terms in prison for rape. In 2007, he was convicted of his first murder, that of a young college student, Angelica Cluke. As more came out about his twisted past and vicious crimes, he became known as Scotland's worst and most vicious serial killer, his fame rising above Bible John himself.

However, detectives and psychologists, started to notice some strange similarities between the uncought killer Bible John and the newly apprehended Peter Tobin. For example, Tobin, like Bible John, brutally raped and murdered his victims. Tobin, like Bible John, lived in Glasgow. Tobin even met his first wife at the Barrelin Wallroom around the time of the Bible John murders, a wife that he later raped and tortured to near death. Whoa, that's really creepy. And even more interesting was that Peter Tobin, Apparently looked quite like the identical picture of Bible John. One detective who had been on the Bible John case said, quote,

when I saw his photograph, I thought, this is as near to Bible John as you're going to get. This looks like a winner. He fitted the bill in every way, and he had connections with religion, unquote. Some of Tobin's fake names included Paul Semple and John Tobin, which are strikingly similar to the fake name that Jeannie recalled Bible John giving on the night of her sister's murder, John Sempleson. In addition, Bible John's killings ended shortly before Peter Tobin was arrested for a series

of burglary charges. Jeez. To top it all off, there were many prominent psychologists and criminal profiles that endorsed the idea that Peter Tobin was Bible John for another interesting reason. Scottish criminal profiler Ian Stephan noted, quote, You don't usually start being a serial killer in your 40s or 50s. You have to start fairly early in life, unquote. The murder that caused Tobin's conviction took place when Tobin was already in his 60s.

And on top of that, Tobin was even said to be driven to rage by the menstrual cycle, becoming particularly violent against his wives when they were on their period. What do you make of all this? It really is starting to seem like Peter Tobin is Bible John. I think the last bit there about becoming violent towards women on their period is perhaps the most interesting link among the evidence, especially considering that was one piece of the puzzle that we couldn't quite figure out when talking about Bible John. It's exciting, isn't it?

Kind of, yeah. Well, I've got some bad news for you, though. Oh, no. Well, tons of psychologists and profilers were 100% convinced that Peter Tobin was Bible John, even so far as to stake their professional career on it being a fact, Margaret McIntosh, Peter Tobin's own wife at the time of the Bible John killings, in addition to one of Tobin's victims, was certain that Tobin was certain that Tobin was a fact. not Bible John. Man, it really felt like all the pieces were finally fitting together. What does his wife

have to say about the situation? In an interview with the UK newspaper, the son, Margaret noted, Well, in some ways, it would be convenient to learn he was Bible John, as he is behind bars, and it would give the families of the victim some closure. But I think the evidence points overwhelmingly away from him. Bible John's either dead or still at large. What makes her say that? Well, a lot of things, actually. A lot of pretty crucial things, to be exact. First, she notes his physical appearance. The physical description of Bible John does not match Tobin. Especially poignant here is that Tobin has a prominent scar that was never mentioned by Jeannie Langford during her interviews with the police. Seeing as Jeannie noted features like hair color, teeth alignment, and detailed

facial features, it would be odd that she wouldn't point out the scar Tobin had under his eye. Well, in stressful situations, people can sometimes forget even glaring details. Even though she remembered some pieces in incredible detail, it doesn't mean she caught everything. The mind is a strange creature. Even so, Margaret also notes that Bible John and Peter Tobin's MOs are different. Whereas Tobin liked to use a knife to assault and kill his victims, Bible John killed by suffocating them. Tobin also hid his victims after the kill, whereas Bible John left them out in the open for everyone to see. And then there's something else pretty important. What? Peter Tobin wasn't religious. He never once mentioned religion or the Bible,

never mind quote from it. He wasn't interested in God. Hmm, yeah, that seems a little off. Even if we've come to the conclusion that Bible John wasn't motivated by the Bible, per se, he definitely took his set of morals from it. There's something even more problematic than that about the Peter Tobin Bible John connection. Tobin was not in Scotland during the time of Bible John's second murder. Really? Really? Margaret and Tobin were on their honeymoon at the time of Jemima McDonald's death in another country. We did not return to Glasgow until at least two weeks after our wedding on the sixth, and the murder was on the 16th.

I know it's a long time ago, and it's not exactly a happy memory, but I'm clear about the fact we were in Brighton. I must admit, this whole case is putting me for a loop. Bible John is religious, then he's not. He's killing with a purpose, or maybe he's just fulfilling a sexual fantasy, he's Peter Tobin, then he isn't. Well, this confusion and frustration is exactly the same the police were facing when trying to catch Bible John. Please don't tell me you did this all on purpose.

But exactly. But at least we could look at it more objectively. Can you imagine the pain of being the Glasgow police, spending thousands of man hours, interviewing over 20,000 people, sending people undercover, working connections everywhere they could, and still coming up with nothing to show for it? Although we or the police didn't manage to find out Bible John's true identity, I think we did a pretty good job at figuring out what was going on inside his head.

I agree. And what a scary mind it was. A sexual serial murderer motivated by a sadistic fetish that was likely aggravated by a conservative religious upbringing. But you know what I think the scariest part is? That Bible John was also a calm, good-looking man, an average John, he could have been anyone. As is often the case with killers. There might be little signs here and there, but you can never truly know if your next-door neighbor is the most sought-after killer in the country.

Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. If you want to listen to any previous episodes of serial killers, you can find them on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Spotify, or in our website, parkast.com, spelled P-A-R-C-A-S-T-com. If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review or tell us what you think on social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram as at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. You know, it seems simple, but it really helps our show. Join us next Monday as we delve into another serial killer. Have a killer week.

Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and developed by Ron Cutler. It is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Ron Shapiro with production assistance by Joel Stein and Maggie Admeyer. Serial Killers is written by Jen Enfield Kane and stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson. The amazing cast of voice actors includes by alphabetical order Mike Caposi and Kimberly Holland. Want to hear something spooky. Some Monster, it reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal.

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