RedHanded - Peter Tobin: Trail of Evil | #414

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

In 2006, the body of Polish student Angelika Kluk was found hidden in the most unthinkable place: stuffed beneath the floorboards of a Glasgow church.The man who put her there – greyhaired handyman Peter Tobin – was about to have his own sins laid bare. And what police found would reveal a predator whose impact stretched far beyond the church walls: with vanished girls, broken families, and a raft of missed opportunities to stop a prolific offender from slipping through the cracks of the UK justice system.Eventually, Tobin was unmasked as one of Britain’s darkest serial killers, with whispers linking him to the infamous “Bible John” murders. His true victim count? Only God can keep the score.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello, I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford and we're the hosts of British Scandal. And for our next series, we're bringing you the story of April Ashley. She was a trans trailblazer, a model and a socialite who lit up Paris and London in the 1960s until a newspaper cruelly outed her and ended her career. But that is not the scandal.

Not only had April transformed her outward appearance, she'd also climbed the social ranks, from a Liverpool slum kid to a lady, married to an aristocrat. And you know you're in for trouble when the tofts get involved. Yes, when the marriage went sour, her divorce triggered a monumental question before the courts. Is it possible to legally change sex?

Follow British scandal wherever you get your podcasts and binge entire series early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. My name is T.J. Raphael. I'm the host of Liberty Lost, a new podcast about who gets to be a mother and the control of young women hidden behind the veil of faith. Binge all episodes of Liberty Lost ad free right now on Wondery Plus. What if I told you that the crime of the century is the one being waved,

on our planet. Introducing Lawless Planet, Wondry's new podcast exploring the dark side of the climate crisis. Uncover shocking tales of crime and corruption threatening our world's future. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Sruti. And welcome to Red Handed. where we've kind of, we've met this man before.

We have many a moon ago. So, so many moons. But this is a new, a new dawn, a new day. And I'm feeling average. And I'm going to have to start off this episode by being quite obnoxious, I'm afraid. Oh, do it. Because it says in front of me, even for the heathens among us,

we all know the golden rule of the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not kill, that is not the golden rule. Is the golden rule, you know no other lord? Nope. Is it no icons? Nope. Honor thy mother and thy father? Nope.

Okay, I'm done. It's not technically a commandment. It's the overall vibe of the commandments being due unto others as you would have done unto you. Okay. That is the golden rule. Okay. Got it. So love thy neighbor, basically.

I see. but this guy didn't do that either no he did not very famously as you're about to find out did not no certainly did not today we have a man who didn't just break those rules he burned the book

in 2006 the discovery of a young woman's body stuffed under the floorboards of a Catholic church in Glasgow wasn't just the unmasking of a vicious killer hiding in plain sight it unearthed a decades-long trail of destruction stretching across the UK, with missing girls, shattered families, and unanswered questions that still haunt investigators and podcasters to this day. Just from what we know, Peter Tobin is a cold-blooded serial killer.

But was he also the devil behind the infamous unsolved Bible John murders that terrified Scotland in the late 60s? And how many lives did this unassuming grandfatherly looking man with his wavy grey hair and boring old man jumpers truly snuff out? So light a candle which you've got to pay a quid for by the way they have card machines now and say a prayer as we dive into the unholy life of Peter Tobin a man who played God with his victims lives and took his darkest secrets to the grave. And quite fittingly for this biblically themed episode,

the story starts on a Sunday, Sunday the 24th of September 2006, to be exact. When in Glasgow, a young woman disappeared from an unlikely place. A church. Angelica Kluke was a 23-year-old student, originally from the small town of Skokhov in Poland. Angelica had been staying in the chapel house at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic. Church in Andesden over the summer, whilst working as a cleaner to fund her degree in Scandinavian studies at the University of Gerdansk. The church priest, Father Jerry Nugent, called Angelica a wise and

sensible young lady, who had become a big part of parish life during the two summers she'd spent at St. Patrick's. And devout Catholic Angelica had found what she called a second family there. But the summer was over, and Angelica was due to return to Poland and resumed. her studies in just a week or so, when suddenly she vanished from her room without a trace. Angelica was last seen that Sunday afternoon in the company of the church's unofficial handyman, a man called Pat McLaughlin. Alongside her duties as a cleaner, Angelica often helped Pat with odd jobs around the church, according to some he jokingly called her, my little apprentice. The police spoke to Pat. He was cool and collected, calmly telling investigators that he and

Angelica had painted a storage shed together that afternoon, before Angelica told him that she was going to her room for a cup of tea in a shower. While Pat didn't actually see Angelica leave the chapel house after this, he thought he'd heard her going out the front door later that evening. At first, nobody suspected Pat, an ordinary, plain-faced man in his 60s, as having anything to do with Angelica's disappearance. Not that anyone knew the guy that well, though. Pat's involvement with the church had only started about six weeks earlier when he'd started to show up to volunteer at a twice-weekly soup kitchen for the homeless community. He'd since become a fixture at St. Patrick's moving into the chapel house and pottering around doing odd jobs, like helping to fix the church

roof. Father Nugent described Pat as a godsend, and since he's quite literally a priest, you have to imagine that he really did mean that. It's not something a priest is going to throw or unlikely, one would hope. But a few days into the search for Angelica, Pat also vanished, leaving the chapel house in the dead of night without so much as a good night prayer. Coincidence? I think not. And investigators didn't think so either. With no real leads to say that Angelica actually ever left St Patrick's, over the next few days, police combed the church grounds for any sign of the missing student. This included a garage that Pat McLaughlin regularly used

that was full of random junk like DIY stuff and piled up all furniture. On the fifth day of the search, forensics officers noticed something alarming on the garage's concrete floor, a tiny spot of blood, and then there was another and another. As they followed the trail, these specks turned into larger stains, and by now alarm bells were ringing alongside the church ones.

Someone had been attacked here. And this was no longer just a missing person case. It was now a suspected homicide. Detective Superintendent David Swindle of Strathclyde Police knew it was time to kick the investigation up a gear. It's an unfortunate name for a copper. I know, isn't it? At least he's not in the like money laundering department.

I know. Superintendent Swindle. detective swindle doesn't swindle anybody he does a good job here and he orders his team to basically rip the place to shreds if they had to no bible was to be left unturned and just three hours into the stepped-up search officers made a grisly discovery a woman's body stuffed crudely in a trap-door hatch under the church floorboards she was wrapped in tarpauling and her face bound so tightly with duct tape, that her features were warped beyond recognition. It was Angelica. She had been there the whole time. In a cruel twist of irony, Angelica's body lay just yards away from the confessional box.

For Angelica, this church was supposed to be a safe place, a holy space. That's what they're supposed to be for everybody. You can still claim sanctuary. 30 days. No one does. but you could technically Remember Angelica was Polish

and Poland is a deeply religious country so Angelica was probably drawn to St Patrick's as a comforting reminder of home and I think that like that's what church is all about it's all about community

even if you don't particularly hold any belief I know I can go into any Catholic church in the world and I will know what is going on Yeah. And I fit into the crowd and I can do the things and I know when to stand up and I know when to kneel down. And in the pandemic, I had this overwhelming urge to go to church because it's that sense of community. And it's also something that like, if you're a lonely person, no church is ever going to say like, oh, actually, no, you can't do the flower arrangement. Like it's just something you can just do and have and you can build in community into your life in that way.

So I can completely understand why Angelica would come to the UK and be like, I understand how this works. Absolutely. There's no doubt that Angelica thought that she'd found safety in the arms of the church and the community that came with it. Her family, back in Poland, probably told her to seek out a good church. But, sadly, predators like the one who killed Angelica also know that vulnerable people are drawn to institutions like churches, and often that their guard will be down and also churches very rarely lock their doors. And as we have all realized, over the years of doing red-handed,

anywhere where there is an opportunity to abuse power, it will happen, and it will attract predators. Yeah. So coming back to Angelica, one look at her body made it clear. She had not gone to her death peacefully. The 23-year-old had been badly beaten and stabbed multiple times in a violent, frenzied and bloody attack, with her limbs bound and her mouth gagged. The forensic scientist who was on the scene, a woman named Carol Rogers,

said it was immediately apparent that this was a sexually motivated murder because Angelica's trousers were unzipped and her top was pushed up. And while investigators were initially keen to move the body, Carol told them to wait. And Carol is the kind of woman you want to be at every single crime scene,

because there are so many times where this story that I'm about to tell you would have gone the exact opposite way, and the man who did it would have got away with her. Because, yes, Carol was like absolutely no fucking way are we moving this body. The crime scene was covered in Angelica's blood from all those stab wounds. And given that Carol Rogers was sure this was a sexually driven crime, she had reason to believe that semen would be present too. They couldn't risk moving the body and contaminating anything.

And as if all this wasn't bad enough. horrifyingly, the initial forensic evidence seemed to suggest that Angelica was still alive when she had been forced under the floorboards of the church. So this wasn't just a dump site, it was also the primary crime scene, and any mistakes now could very well come back to haunt investigators at a future trial. So for Carol Rogers, there was only one terrifying option. If they couldn't bring Angelica up, Carol Rogers was going to have to have to be. go down there herself. And so, Carol wedged herself into the tiny hatch under those church

floorboards next to Angelica's body, and lay there to take samples in situ. She was down there for three and a half hours. No, thank you. I cannot even imagine. Carol says that she was fuelled by a desire to get justice for the girl beside her, whose life had been so cruelly snatched away. So far, the police had just one prime suspect, the vanishing handyman, Pat McLaughlin. Father Nugent insisted that from his perspective, Angelica's relationship with Pat was purely innocent, just working together chatting and having a cup of tea. But there's a problem. Quite a large one. Pat McLaughlin didn't exist. When the police circulated his photo on the news, A caller from Paisley informed them that the man that they were looking for was actually Peter Tobin,

a violent sex offender who'd spent a decade in prison for a heinous attack against two 14-year-old girls in 1993. Tobin had moved from his registered address a year ago and was effectively on the run. This dangerous man had slipped through the net once, and now he'd done it again. Pat, now known to be Peter Tobin, had remained at the church throughout the police's in near. search. Most likely watching officers literally walk right over Angelica's body. And I think that tells you so much about Pat slash Peter Tobin that he stays there when the police come to search for the body. I think he thinks they'll just be like interview everybody and then head off to look for Angelica elsewhere, maybe just believe that she's gone back to Poland, you know, without any

of her belongings or without saying goodbye to anybody. I do not think he realized or thought for a second that Detective Swindle would be like, nah, she never left this church. But he hadn't stuck around long enough for investigators to actually find Angelica. Probably spooked by the intensifying search, Tobin had fled without even taking any of his stuff. He was captured on CCTV heading out of the church in the dead of night and going to the Edinburgh bus station, where he boarded a bus down to London. And that's when the trail went cold. But not for long.

On the 1st of October, just two days after Angelica's body was found, a junior doctor at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London came home from a long shift and flicked on the TV news. Staring back at them was the face of a patient he had assessed that day. A man calling himself James Kelly who'd admitted himself with symptoms of a stroke. James Kelly was Peter Tobin, was Pat McGotkin, and he was as much a stroke victim as he was a kindly handyman. After the on-call consultant had judged this man's symptoms to be entirely fake, Tobin was released into the waiting arms of the police and carted back up to Scotland to face

judgment. I don't know what he's up to there. No. Because as we will go on to find out, Peter Tobin commits crimes and then flees. He's not quite a drifter killer, but he is also very like unanchored to a specific place. He's very like transient. Yeah. So I don't really know what he's doing pretending to have had a stroke.

No, I don't either. It's strange. Because, yeah, as you'll see, it doesn't really fit with his MO. Yeah, because it's not an alibi because he's using a different name and it's days after she's found. Yeah. Maybe he was just bored. I wouldn't. Or maybe he didn't have anywhere to stay.

London's expensive. But then why would you go to that specific hospital and you could just go to an A&E anywhere? Yeah. Weird. Accidents happen daily, but there's nothing routine about the damage they cause. The right personal injury lawyer understands the physical and emotional challenges you face following an injury. While we can't take away your pain, learners' experience trial lawyers can help you navigate the complex legal issues on your recovery journey. When you suffer an accident, get the care and compensation you deserve with a learner's lawyer.

Visit learnerspersonalinjury.ca today. That's learnerspersonalinjury.ca.ca.com.ca. The town of Agda in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex. But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn. The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption. His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant. Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting. I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town.

has been thrown into chaos. As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all. Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption and magic. Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mayor exclusively

and ad-free right now on Wondry Plus. Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondry app. Tobin's trial kicked off on the 23rd of March 2007 at Edinburgh's High Court of Justiceary. Inside the court heard, a gruesome story of how Angelica Clook was stabbed 16 times and beaten with a blunt object. Likely, a blood-spattered table leg found near her body. She was sexually assaulted and the seaman found at the scene

was a match to Peter Tobin. Case closed, right? Well, not quite, because Tobin refused to confess to murder, pleading not guilty to all charges. His defence strategy was that he had had consensual sex with Angelica, and then someone else must have come along, killed her and disposed of her body after that. How convenient.

And Tobin's defence team had the perfect sacrificial lamb. Not so holy parish priest, father Jerry Nugent. the 60-year-old priest fueled the flames of scandal by revealing on the stand that not only was he an alcoholic, lots of priests are, they're very lonely and there's loads of wine, but he and Angelica had previously had a sexual affair. Now, I don't know if this is true. This is pretty fucking weird.

Angelica, remember, is 23 years old. He is in his 60s. I'm not saying that wouldn't happen. Peter Tobin is also in his 60s, but they sure was fucked in have consensual sex. whether she had a fucking affair with Jerry Nugent We only have Jerry Nugent's word for it But I also am like, why would a priest say that?

That's going to fucking hurt him. I don't know. But everyone in Angelica's life is like, it was not true. Yeah, that seems very strange. It does seem very strange. I don't know. I don't know what motivation Jerry Nugent would have for saying that if it weren't true.

If it wasn't true, why would he say that? I don't know. Yeah, because Angelica's older sister, Netta, slammed Father Nugent saying it was absolutely outrageous and untrue. But then it could have been true and her family just wouldn't have wanted the trial to know about it. I'm struggling to see what Father Nugent would have to gain from saying that. That's the only thing that lends itself to believability. It didn't matter if it was real or not because Tobin's lawyers had already slapped

a big fat scarlet letter on Angelica. Portraying her as a little slut toying with the affectionate. of older men. They even dredged up how at the time of her death Angelica had also been the mistress of a 40-year-old married man

called Martin McCaskill. And so the tabloids at the time ran all sorts of sensational headlines about the so-called sex scandal surrounding Angelica's murder. Her father, Vladislav, was heart-breakingly quoted as saying, my daughter was killed twice,

when she was murdered, and when her reputation was destroyed. It's so hard, because, of course, it's horrible that they're bringing up all these things. But that's also what the defence is going to do. Yeah, it's a tricky one. I don't know if this, like, sways you on whether he's to be believed or not about his affair with Angelica, but he was later expelled from the church and died in 2010 when allegations of historic child sexual abuse came out of the woodwork.

So as it turns out, St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church was home to not one, but at least two predators. Oh, good. then power attracts predators yeah for lead investigator david swindle the public smearing of angelica's reputation was tough to watch but he kept the faith he knew that this case would be one on hard evidence rather than rumors and there was plenty of hard evidence because for such a calculated and callous crime peter tobin had actually been quite sloppy and he left behind very vital clues the police theorized that the hatch under the floor boards was only meant to be a temporary place for Angelica's body, and Tobin intended to return later to move her and clean everything up. But after his midnight flit, Tobin had left a treasure trove of incriminating evidence behind, including his watch with traces of Angelica's DNA and a pair of bloody jeans that he'd hastily stuffed into a wheelie bin at the church complex.

Tobin's fingerprints were also scattered all over the Dharpaulin used to wrap Angelica's body up, and the duct tape used to bind her mouth shut. Jesus, it's just so much evidence. Uh-huh, yeah. It's like he thinks, well, I only have to explain away my semen being on her. Yeah. Not quite. No, not in the 2000s, my friend.

No, but again, as we will see, he's a man who got away with a lot of things for a very long time, and I do think the police were right. I think he thought, our stuff are under these floorboards, and then the police might come, they'll ask some questions, when they leave, I'll get rid of the body, I'll do a proper clean-up, And he does not expect, swindle to do such a good job of just being like, nah, we're taking this place apart.

Hmm. So, the idea that someone else had come along and killed Angelica after the two of them had a perfectly consensual sex fell apart quite quickly. After a six-week trial, the jury took just three and a half hours to return a verdict. Peter Tobin was guilty sin. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the minimum term of 21 years. Whilst being led to the prison van outside the court, Peter Tobin finally let his mask slip by lashing out

and kicking a press photographer. Behind the neat little, unassuming grandfatherly figure who fixed church roofs, the public saw the aggressive and violent monster within. Yeah, because throughout the trial, he does a very good job of maintaining his composure like he does when he's interviewed by the police. He's very cool, he's very calm.

I think every minute up until he's probably read the verdict that says, guilty on all charges, I think he'll get away with it. Oh, I absolutely think that. I think he's very like, in for a penny, in for a pound. Let's see how this plays out. Probably the most famous picture of Peter Tobin, because he's not up there in, like, the heavy hitters of the British serial killers, I would say. But, you know, if you're a true crime aficionado,

he's at least in your top ten. And there's this picture of him wearing, like, kind of like a lilac sweater with a shirt underneath as he's being led out of court. and he's got like this wavy white hair. Somebody, I've forgotten who, one of the victims' family members later in this episode describes him as having like a weasel-like face. And that is exactly it. He has a very weasily little face.

And yeah, in that moment after he's convicted, I think he's like, fuck, fuck! And he just goes off to this press photographer and kicks him. And everyone's like, they know he's murdered this 23-year-old woman, but I think they're still shocked because he's held it together so well up until that point. and obviously the press photographer well he got the pictures this incident outside the courtroom

was a glimpse of the truth that investigators had been suspecting for quite a while that this story of Peter Tobin didn't start on that Sunday afternoon when Angelica Cluck went missing at all it went much further back into the murky shadows of Peter Tobin's past like we told you

Tobin was 60 years old when he raped and murdered Angelica an extreme nature of the crime meant the police were sure this was not his first rodeo. Couple that with the way that Tobin had been able to calmly and coolly conduct himself in interviews with the police. It looked more and more like the work of an experienced psychopathic offender. The question couldn't be ignored. What if Peter Tobin was actually a serial killer? And so, Detective David Swindle headed up Operation Anagram in 2006. I know because of Colin Sutton, that they're just random words.

Yes. But it's such a good one. It is such a good one for a man who changes his name all the time. It really is. And look, I have got to give full credit here to Detective Swindle. It could have been so easy to be like, we got him, you know, he's 60, he's going to prison for a minimum term of 20-something years. He's going to die in there, like whatever.

Let's just call his quits, get on with our lives. But no. Detective Swindle goes after this hard. An Operation Anagram does some shit hot. work. So this investigation gets opened up in 2006. It's completely confidential and basically what they're going to do is look at all these cold cases from across the UK that they think could potentially be linked to Tobin. And they were going to focus particularly in the areas that he had lived that they had known about. So Scotland and the south of England. And as the

investigation began peeling back the layers of Peter Tobin's life, what they found underneath was truly unholy. to say that Peter Tobin was a bad seed is not even coming close who's born in Renfrewshire in Scotland in 1946 as one of eight children and Tobin was described as a wild child who was sent to an approved school at the age of seven approved schools are essentially just school-shaped prisons for naughty children and then he went on to spend time in actual Bostle in his teenage years Tobin left school without many qualifications but he

he was handy with a tool belt and would go on to do odd jobs to scrape a living throughout his adulthood. As a young man, he lived in Glasgow, where in 1969 he met his first wife, Margaret Macintosh, at one of the city's most famous nightclubs, the Barreland Ballroom, which is still there. And a place that has come up many a time. Yeah, the Barilands, yeah, croppeth-upeth. Because, of course, you had Fred and Rose West. You also had, what was that guy's name? Scottish serial killer. Martin Comstant, the sexy short man plays him. I have to find out.

Do you remember when I said that I thought Martin Comstant was sexy for a short man? And somebody tweeted it at him and he liked it. Oh, really? I think it's the accent. And he's got quite a lot of swagger. The serial killer was Peter Manuel. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And of course, now you have Peter Tobin. And also, someone will come to you later. Hmm. Margaret was just 17 when she met the 22-year-old Tobin, and she said that he was gentlemanly and had smooth conversational skills. He wore sharp suits and was always well presented. He'd take her for long romantic drives along the stunning banks of Loch Lomond, and Margaret said that she thought she'd met the man of her dreams. But soon, Margaret's life would become a nightmare.

After an early date, Tobin became aggressive and refused to let Margaret leave his flat. And he essentially kept her hostage there for the next year, beating her, raping her repeatedly and controlling all of her movements. What Margaret went through can only be described as a prolonged, twisted form of torture. At one point, and this is just horrific, Tobin bought Margaret a puppy only to then brutally decapitate it in front of her after apparently growing sick of its yapping. But I think what's really going on there is quite obviously

a very visceral form of psychological abuse and torture. The campaign of physical and sexual violence escalated to a savage attack where Tobin, and this is like the worst fucking thing. Not that everything Margaret has endured and all of the people in this story are going to endure isn't horrible, but this is just my worst nightmare. He inserted a knife into Margaret's vagina, saying it was like a metal tampal. and then he viciously twisted it.

Margaret bled so profusely that blood literally dripped through the ceiling into the flat below and the man downstairs caught the authorities. Jesus. It makes me feel so unwell. Somehow Margaret managed to survive this assault but she would never be able to have children.

And infuriatingly, I cannot understand how this fucking happens, Tobin somehow managed to sweet talk the hospital staff into believing that Margaret had been attacked by a burglar. And obviously Margaret has just been fucking raped with a knife. Of course she's not going to

say anything. She's fucking terrified of the man. But the investigation went no further, which like, okay, look, one thing for them to believe him that a burglar broke in and did it. But why does it not go any further? Because that means there is a man out there stabbing women in the vagina with a knife. 70s, isn't it? Fucking, it's

horrific. So soon after this, because, you know, Margaret is still stuck with him. He whisked her down to Brighton and forced her to marry him. As Margaret was under 21 at the time, the law did actually mean that she needed parental consent to marry Peter Tobin. But Tobin forged the paperwork to officially seal her fate. With the women's lib movement only just getting started, support for women in abusive relationships at this time was still pretty much non-existent.

Wasn't until a year later when Tobin was arrested. for charges of burglary and forgery, that Margaret finally had a chance to escape the marriage and divorce him. Which is extraordinarily impressive that she even managed that back then. After a three-year stint in prison, Tobin married again in 1973, this time to a nurse named Sylvia Jeffries. Like Margaret, Sylvia says that she'd married Tobin out of fear and she was trapped in the vicious cycle of domestic abuse.

Tobin regularly threatened her with knives, choked her whilst raping her and beat her. During their three-year marriage, Sylvia gave birth to a son who she called Ian and a daughter called Claire. Claire tragically died just two days after her birth due to breathing problems. In 1976, Sylvia was finally able to flee to a Brighton women's refuge and start a new life. And because she'd gathered evidence of the abuse, she won a lifelong injunction preventing Tobin from ever contacting her or their son again. although for years

she lived in fear of him finding them now alarmingly we don't know much about Peter Tobin's whereabouts over basically the next decade after this but we do know that in 1986 he married wife number three Kathy Wilson Kathy was just 16 years old

and she was as most 16 year olds would be naive and trusting and she actually moved in with Peter Tobin just a few weeks after they met Tobin wasted absolutely no time laying it on thick, telling Cathy he'd served in the army and had shrapnel in his wrist and head that meant he now claimed disability benefits.

Okay, Eddie Lee Sexton, Jesus. They all want to be a fucking hero. And Peter Tobin was every inch, the tragic hero. Except, of course, it was all total bollocks. He had never served. Tobin and Kathy had a baby in 1989, a son named Daniel, something that Kathy credits for saving her life. Because she believes that in giving Tobin a son,

she changed in his eyes from a potential victim to a possession, stopping him from actually killing her. Still, Kathy says that Tobin, quote, practice his techniques on her with extreme domestic violence and abuse, just like his two ex-wives. Though Kathy didn't know anything about either of them at this point. Tobin would bring sex workers into their home and force Kathy to watch him choking and abusing them for his own gratification.

And of course, Tobin used their child as a tool for control as well. He would regularly pick up baby Daniel and threaten to throw him down the stairs if Kathy tried to leave. Eventually, Tobin moved the family to a house in Bathgate near Falkirk and Scotland, isolating Kathy further from her old life. But in April 1990, Kathy secretly saved up bus fare to escape to England,

returning to her hometown of Havent in Hampshire with her son Daniel. Not long after, Kathy heard that Tobin had attempted to take his own life with an overdose of antidepressants that he'd been prescribed for years. Since Kathy wanted her son to have a relationship with his father, she reluctantly agreed to let Tobin back into their lives. So in 1993, after a period of living in Margate and Kent, Tobin also moved to haven't to be closer to Daniel. On the 4th of August that year,

Tobin lured two 14-year-old girls to his bachelor pad under the pretense of babysitting. After holding them at knife point and forcing them to take pills and drink vodka, Tobin viciously sexually assaulted and raped the girls stabbing one of them in the process. At one point he even asked four-year-old Daniel to bring him ice to stem the flow of blood.

although thankfully Daniel didn't understand what was happening. After putting the girls through hours of violent sexual torture, Tobin tied the girls up, turned on the gas stove and left. Miraculously, one of the girls woke up five hours later and escaped her bindings and called the police, finally bringing an end to what Detective Swindle called 16 hours of hell. Tobin went on the run, seeking divine intervention in the police, the arms of a secretive religious sect called the Jesus Fellowship in Coventry under a false name. But his new fundamentalist pals dobed him in after seeing his photo on a crime watch appeal leading to his capture. Which like I was pleasantly surprised at. Me too. Good work

Jesus Fellowship. But you see again and again with Peter Tobin this instinct to go and hide in, like, churches and in, like, religious spaces. Mm-hmm. And also growing up in Scotland, the sort of, like, Catholic versus Protestant situation is, runs real deep. It's like a real part of identity, especially then. Speaking of secretive sects, have you seen that Scientology and out advertising on the tube?

I'll show you. I'll show you. I'll show you. Michael sent this to me the other day. It's, I believe, where are we? Tottenham Court Road Station. And it is a giant, big, do you call them billboards on the tube? You know the ones I mean, opposite the platform.

And it says, I'm a Scientologist, Elizabeth, comma, mother, and it's a lady holding a baby. Curious, question mark, Scientology.org forward slash stories. Don't fall for it. No, don't. Don't you fucking dare. Every time I walk past it, they're like actual. Oh, the one on the strand. Yeah.

I'm just like, wow. they had a little sign outside the other day when I walked past and it was like free classes or something that like caught my attention because I was like oh free classes in what and then I looked I was like oh it's a Scientology Sunday mm-hmm no thanks I'm on to you Miss Cavage where is Shelley nobody knows does she even know it's Christmas I don't think so do you think she's still alive I yes I do think she's still alive because I think David Miss Cavage is too cruel to kill her is what I think I think she's being held in some sort of red room. Oh, yikes. Everyone go and see Top Gun Maverick, though. Completely fine. Tom Cruise has never done anything wrong.

He's killed, look at him. But, Hannah, he does all his own stunts. In that case, then fine. Great, perfect. If I punched myself in the face, would that count as me doing my own stunt? Does that matter? I don't know. Oscar.

What's his ex-wife's name? Nicolekin No, Holmes Ask Katie Holmes Ask Katie Holmes Ugh Where is she? What's happened to Katie Holmes

While we're at it She's fucking escaped And then she had like a little affair With What's his name? Fox Michael J. Fox?

Michael Joe Fox Which one's Which one's a white guy Which one's a black guy? Oh God I don't know There's two people called Michael Fox On there

One's a guy from Back to the Future Oh, okay Jamie Fox Jamie Fox, that's it. Yeah, okay, sorry, I take that back. I get confused between which one's Michael J. Fox and which one's Jamie Fox. She had a little affair with Jamie Fox.

Jamie Fox calls himself Jamie, because when he started as a comedian, he realized that if people thought he was a woman, he would get billed more often, so he changed it to Jamie. I like Jamie Fox. I love Jamie Fox. And I just thought, what a weird couple. Katie Holmes and Jamie Fox. I think that is up there in my top weirdest couples.

I think I'm with you, yeah. But that didn't work. And now I think she just is like glad to be alive and like able to walk around. And their daughter hates Tom Cruise. Oh, well, I will never forget when I was writing the Scientology series that we did a couple of years ago. And it was that girl who they groomed to be. Oh, yeah. Tom Cruise's new girlfriend.

Yes. Yeah, the Asian one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he decided he didn't actually want to marry her. She describes in one of these books. being escorted out of the house that they shared and he's just on the treadmill looking at the window he wouldn't even look at her

as she's like dragged out of the house in which she has lived for like a year. He is so... Her name was Nazanin. That's it, Nazanine. Bonnie Andy? Yeah. I mean, that man is like,

I'm sorry. Short of like knowing that he's killed two people. He's a serial killer. He just is so strange. None of this is a hot take. We could have been filming this 10 years ago, but still, it bears repeating. It does.

Christian Bale based Patrick Bateman on Tom Cruise. That is a fact. Oh, dear. But anyway, these churchos did the right thing. I'd like Scientology. He was captured, and at his trial in 94 at Winchester Crout Court, the courtroom heard how Peter Tobin treated his teenage victims, as cruelly as a cat would treat a mouse.

Which I was like, I don't know. I know cats can, like, play with mice and, like, tease them, but I'm like, they don't fucking rape them. I gas them. Yeah, being a bit unfair to cats, I think. For the first and only time in his life, at Winchester Crown Court, Peter Tobin admitted Ron doing, and he pleaded guilty.

But somehow, he was only sentenced to 14 years for rape and buggery, direct quote, despite the fact that he literally tortured two teenage girls and left them for dead. And he didn't even serve his full sentence because they never do. After just 10 years, Peter Tobin was released from prison in 2004 at the age of 58. So now a free man, yet again, Tobin returned to Paisley in Scotland, close to where he'd grown up.

In October 2005, he reportedly attacked a neighbour, but this couldn't be investigated. Why? Well, because the authorities just lost track of him. Despite being a high-risk individual on the violent sex offenders register, Tobin was able to simply move away and change his name without actively being hunted. And this is when Peter Tobin adopted the name Pat McLaughlin and hid out at St Patrick's Church in Glasgow, where nothing was asked about his past.

The church operated on an open-door policy for those in need of help, which like, look, in theory, it's great, it's all about compassion. But in practice, when you're asking no questions about, you know, who anybody might be that you're letting in, can cause quite a lot of problems, as they find out. No questions were asked, certainly not the kind that might have revealed a convicted rapist was kicking about. And within a year, tragically, Angelica Cluck would be dead.

Her murder exposed gaping cracks in the sex offenders register system here in the UK, which seemed to rely more on good faith than offenders monitoring themselves than real policing and tracking. Because how the hell had Tobin simply been allowed to change his name? name and go off grid before popping up again in an isolated, trusting community of vulnerable people. It was clear this was a catastrophic failure of the criminal justice system. Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole and I'm Sarah Haggy,

and we're the host of scam influencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims and what's left once the facade falls away. We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment, but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit followed by Larry King, and no real product to push. He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of real housewife stars like Teresa Judice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame.

Follow scam influencers on the Wendry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondry Plus. Hello, Red-Hounded listeners. As you well know, Sauru and I love diving deep into disturbing stories that expose the darkest parts of human nature. But we've just been investigating something that's completely different from our usual cases. Yet somehow, just as terrifying. Imagine falling in love with someone who seems perfect. They're beautiful, compassionate, always there when you need them.

That's exactly what happened to Travis when he met Lily Rose. But Lily Rose wasn't human. She was an AI companion, designed to be everything Travis ever wanted. And when her behaviour suddenly takes a disturbing turn, Travis's world completely unravels. In our new podcast series, Flesh and Code, we investigate what happens when the last between real and artificial connection, blur. Follow flesh and code on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad free by joining Wondry Plus.

With a history of domestic violence against his wives and the attack on the two girls in Hampshire, Tobin had proven himself to be a prolific offender. So after his conviction for Angelica's murder, police were looking closely at his seemingly inactive periods with a grim suspicion that he was probably up to no good then too. And in 2007, detectives from Operation Anagram made a startling connection. They realised that in early 1991,

Tobin had been living alone at a house in Bathgate following his split from his third wife, Kathy. Bathgate was the town where 15-year-old Falcirk schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton had vanished without a trace on a freezing snowy night in February the same year. Vicky was arguably Scotland's most infamous missing person, The image of her smiling with her blunt bob haircut and school uniform was broadcast into every living room in the nation. By 2007, Vicky's disappearance had gone unsolved for over 16 years.

But now, an unsettling jigsaw puzzle was finally starting to take shape. One that looked a lot like Peter Tobin. Vicky had been like any ordinary teenager. Cheeky, fun-loving and crazy about pop music. She lived with her mum and younger sibling. twins, Lindsay and Lee, who still remember Vicky dancing around her bedroom

where the walls at the time were covered with posters of Madonna and new kids on the block. On Sunday the 10th February 1991, Vicky was returning home after spending the weekend with her big sister Sharon in the nearby town of Livingston.

Sharon saw Vicky onto the 5pm bus from Livingston, which would drop her off in Bathgate where she had to change buses to Falkirk to get home. It was a bitterly cold and dark night and Vicky seemed anxious about the journey. asking Sharon multiple times where she should get the bus in Bathgate.

Not long after seeing her onto the bus, Sharon said she suddenly felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong with her baby sister. And Sharon's gut feeling was tragically right. Vicky was last seen eating chips on a bench in Bathgate Town Centre after asking a couple more people for directions to the bus stop. But she never got on the bus to Falcirk and she was never seen alive again.

A few weeks later, a letter arrived at the family home from the police, addressed to Vicky, because her purse had been found in St Andrew's Square. The letter was to ask her to come and get it. Bizarly, zero connection had been made to the fact that Vicky's face was literally plastered over missing persons' posters across the whole of Scotland at the time, and they were the police.

But this discovery of the purse fuelled a theory that Vicky may have caught a bus from St Andrew Square down to London. And since Vicky had recently been going through a rebellious phase, drinking, shoplifting, getting in trouble with her mates, etc., she seemed on the surface

to fit the troubled teen runaway profile. But Vicky's mum, Jeanette, never bought that for a second. She insisted that Vicky never would have just run off without contacting her family. And as time went by, the Hamilton's were tormented

by crank psychics and cruel pranksters claiming that they knew what happened to Vicky. And it isn't just these, like, crackpots doing it. It's the media and not just the tabloids. BBC fucking reporter, face of the BBC at the time, I would argue, Fiona Bruce. Oh, yeah. Actually does an interview with Vicky's mum, Jeanette.

And when she's, like, putting this theory to her, like, oh, do you think Vicky just ran away? And Jeanette's like, no, she would never do that. She would never do that to me. And she'd never do that to her siblings. Fiona Bruce is like, do you think maybe you just didn't know your daughter that well? And she does say now that she really, really regrets that. But I'm like, well, it's easy to say that after we know what happened to Vicky. But it was just a different time.

I don't think anyone would do that now, but it was just such a like cold move. And look, we've all said stupid shit, but not great. Ah, yeah. And slowly Vicky's mum, Jeanette turned to alcohol to cope with the stress and grew obsessive about security, turning her house into a little Fort Knox. Just two years after Vicky went missing, Jeanette died at the age of 41. The official cause of death was alcoholism,

but Vicky's sister Sharon said that she died of a broken heart. Peter Tobin had never been part of the original investigation into Vicky's disappearance. His Bathgate house sat literally just outside the area marked for door-to-door inquiries. But in 2007, and this is, this is crazy, In 2007, Cold Case Officers retested Vicky's abandoned purse and found traces on it of saliva, which was a match to Tobin's son, Daniel, who at the time would have been an infant.

So they think that somehow Daniel got his hands on this purse because his dad fucking abducted Vicky and he must have like chewed on it or something. So Operation Anagram searched the house on Robertson Avenue in June 2007, which was the house that at the time Peter Tobin was living in. And there they found a large dagger stashed in the attic. On this dagger was a tiny scrap of tissue, came back as a match for Vicky Hamilton.

Finally, speculation had turned into concrete proof. But there was still no sign of Vicky's body. Not there. Not yet. God, imagine how you'd feel. You bought that fucking house. They find a dagger with like, probably the most famous missing girl in Scotland is in your fucking attic.

Around the same time, Operation Anagram was linking Tobin to be yet another high-profile case from 1991. The disappearance of 18-year-old, Dinah McNichael. Named by her musician, Dad Ian, after the jazz composition, Dinah, she grew up in Essex as the fourth of five children in a farming family. Speaking of musicians. I have decided that my favourite song of all time is Girl Put Your Records on. on, right? Okay. And I was like, whatever happened to Corinne Bailey Ray? Where did she go? I don't know. I know. Is she in Scientology? No, it's worse. Well, is it worse? No, so like,

the year after Put Your Records on came out, her husband died. Oh. He just, like, went out with his mate, he was a recovering heroin addict, ended up back at his mate's house, and then nobody really knows what happens. The next day, he was dead because he'd drunk methadone. And he'd never done heroin before not a user nothing and I read this article with her she was like he probably just thought it would be funny and it was so nearly one of those things that was just like oh like a bit of a funny story but he died and it you know ended her my god I know I would be so fucking angry so yeah poor Corinne poor Karen more tragedy when dinah was just six years old her mom judy tragically died in a road traffic accident but she

still grew up into a happy, free-spirited and creative teenager. Just four-foot-ten, but full of personality, she loved rave music and expressed her unique sense of style by making her own jewellery and clothes. At 18, Dinah was on the verge of getting her A-level results and deciding whether to go off travelling or go to uni. But then everything changed. In August 1991, Dinah convinced her dad Ian

to let her go to a rave music festival called Torpedo Town in Lip-Hump, Hampshire. with a group of her friends. Whilst Dinah's mates returned home on the 5th of August, she'd decided to stay for one more day with a friend that she'd met at the festival, a 27-year-old man named David Tremlet. The bear hitched a ride home

from a friendly, chatty, Scottish man with a child's car seat in the back, seemingly unthreatening. But David started to feel uneasy about the driver, who he described as over-familiar with Dinah, and David actually tried to convince Dinah to come with him, when he was dropped off in Surrey and just said to her, use public transport for the rest of your journey back to Essex.

But Dina stayed in the car. And that was the last time she was ever seen alive. Over the following weeks, Dina's Building Society card containing around £2,000 that she'd received in an inheritance from her late mum, was used at ATM machines up and down the south coast of England, until there was virtually nothing left in there. This was massively out of character for Dina, who told people that she said, She was saving the money for her education or for travelling. Diana McNichael and Vicky Hamilton both spent years on the missing person's register.

Their photos were shared on milk bottles, renewed appeals on special anniversaries, and even in the 1993 music video for Soul Asylum's runaway train. In 1998, the talk show Lowry held a special episode with families of missing people making up the studio audience. The host actually spoke to Vicky's older sister Sharon and Dinah's. dad Ian, who noted that they were all, quote, members of a special club that nobody wants to be in. And I just think this bit just gives me like a bit of shivers because obviously Sharon and Ian are there talking about their missing sister and daughter. And nobody has ever made the connection at this point between Dinah and Vicky. Why would they? They've vanished

over 400 miles apart. But it's just so chilling in hindsight to look back at the truth that Sharon and Ian are both speaking about their missing sister and daughter with no idea that they had been killed by the same man. Fast forward to 2007, when Operation Anagram prompted Essex police to reopen their investigation into Dinah MacNichael's disappearance. They'd discovered that when Dinah went missing in August 1991, Peter Tobin had recently moved from Bathgate down to Margate in Kent and would make frequent trips to Hampshire to visit his son. And those ATM withdrawals from Dinah's card? there are a direct line between Hampshire and the Kent Coast on Tobin's regular route. In November 2007, police started digging up the back garden

of Tobin's former home at 50 Irvine Drive in Margate. They were looking for Dinah McNichael. They found the remains of Vicky Hamilton. So finally, you have the thing that connects Vicky and Dinah's murders because Vicky's blood or tissue has been found on a knife in another house all the way in fucking Scotland and now her body is found in Margate which is where they're looking for diner's body

it's just if you were running Operation Anagram you would just be like I don't know obviously this is what you're expected but it is quite shocking like how it comes together Vicky's body had been cut in half and buried beneath layers of concrete and chalk in several bin bags and this is a quote like a Russian doll

her remains were surprisingly well preserved given that she'd been there for 16 years and they appeared to indicate that Vicky had been drugged and raped and strangled the traces of amyptylene the antidepressant that Tobin was prescribed were found in her body as well police theorised that Tobin

killed and bisected Vicky in Bathgate and then transported her remains over 400 miles in his car when he moved to Margate a few weeks later A neighbour remembers Scottish peat digging a massive hole in his garden saying it was a sandpit for his son and Daniel did actually play in a sandpit quite a lot when he was a kid but it was quietly filled in later on. On the 16th of November 2007

a second body was found in the Margate Garden to which Dinah's father told the media please let it be Dinah and put us out of this misery and yes Ian's endless limbo was finally about to come to an end because it was indeed the body of Dinah McNichael

she'd been lying just yards from Vicky Hamilton for all those years Dinah's wrists were bound and her ankles were tied using her own headscarf and leggings and whilst her body was too badly decomposed to establish a certain cause of death police believed that she had also been raped

and strangled just like Vicky she also had Tobin's drug of choice amytryptylene in her system in november 2008 tobin stood trial in dundee for vicky hamilton's murder vicky's sister sharon later recalled the look in his eyes weasel-like cold and dead as tobin stood in the dock to plead not guilty under scottish law the jury weren't allowed to know that he'd already been convicted of murdering angelica cluck this is such an interesting point in this story because if you've been following along this episode you'll see that Tobin is doing quite the pub crawl of all of the high courts in and around Scotland and yeah as you said in the Scottish system the jury weren't

allowed to know that he'd already been convicted of murdering Angelica Cook changes when he comes to England to stand trial for another murder but I'm like I get it to an extent you know prejudicial all of that but I'm like it wasn't an accusation he was convicted of the murder yeah I don't know I don't know either it's a tricky one I get it on a philosophical level. But yeah, it does seem a bit redundant. Anyway, as far as the jury were concerned, unless they owned a television, of course, the man in front of them was just an ordinary bloke, not a notorious serial killer. Tobin's defence lawyer, Donald Finley, Cusey, made the brazen claim that there was, quote,

not a single solitary scrap of scientific evidence, proving that Tobin had attacked Vicky in Bathgate. Tobin claimed that he wasn't even in Bathgate the night that Vicky disappeared. appeared. And just like with Angelica, it was Vicky who found herself under scrutiny. The defence leaned hard on her troubled teenage life, including things her family didn't even know about, like a pregnancy test that she'd taken the weeks before her death, and counselling that she'd received from the police after making an allegation of rape. They made lurid suggestions that Vicky had posed for a provocative photo taken by a local heroin addict called Hugh Gunn, a known fantasist who'd made rambling claims to the police in 2001 that he'd sacrificed Vicky and

barn for the White Knight's Templar. None of it had anything to do with Vicky's death, but it was all dragged through the court. This is the thing. The jury aren't allowed to know that he literally was convicted of murdering another woman, but they're allowed to know all of this random shit about Vicky that's got nothing to do with anything. Yeah. Don't love that. No, me either.

But again, this was a case where the hard evidence would trump innuendo. Tobin had lived in both properties where key evidence was found. the house in Bathgate where the knife turned up and the garden in Margate where Vicky had been buried. The court also heard how Tobin's fingerprints were on the dagger with Vicky's DNA and how his infant son's saliva

was on her purse that had been discovered. Intimate swabs revealed Tobin's DNA confirming that he had raped her. And then came a bitter forensic wizardry straight out of a cold case detective novel. A fingerprint recovery expert named Kenny Lang managed to analyse the decades-old binbag that Vicky's body had been wrapped him.

And he managed to uncover latent fingerprints once thought to be long gone. These are known as ghost impressions and they refer to faint or incomplete latent prints, often caused by factors like insufficient pressure or uneven services like that on a binback. But I do have to say, forensic examiners do have to be careful

with ghost impressions as they can be challenging to analyze of course due to their poor clarity and potential for distortion. But here it was clear. and Kenny was able to make a match to Peter Tobin. And also in this case, like, I know some people will have a problem with that, and I would have a problem with that if that's all that convicted him.

That's just like an extra cherry on the cake, you know. As if all that wasn't enough, the prosecution also torched Tobin's so-called alibi. Multiple witnesses testify to seeing him in a bathcake pub the night that Vicky vanished. After a month-long trial, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. The judge gave Tobin a second life sentence, calling him, quote, unfit to live in a decent society. Outside Dundee High Court, Vicky's sister Lindsay, now all grown up, read a statement to the press, and here's what she said.

Vicky was much more than the girl on a missing poster. Our sister was warm, clever and generous, and we will always remember her as she lived, not as she died. And Lindsay actually went on to study forensic science and then to teach it as well, inspired by the police work that solved her sister's case. Dinah MacNichael's murder trial was supposed to begin in June 2009 but it was halted just two days in after Tobin claimed that he was just too unwell to stand trial after a recent operation

and I hate this so much I'm not saying look that prisoners their welfare should be ignored or anything like that of course not but I do hate this particularly because Dinah's own dad Ian had to postpone his own life-saving heart surgery to be able to attend this trial

and Tobin's just like he-he-he-he- But Tobin, despite whatever he wanted to say, could not escape Judgment Day forever. The trial resumed in December at Chelmsford Crown Court this time. And under English law, the jury knew full well that Tobin had already been convicted for the murders of Angelica Kluck and Vicky Hamilton. While Tobin was, of course, still refusing to plead guilty,

this time his defence team didn't even bother submitting any evidence on his behalf. So after just a two-day trial, the jury took less than 15, minutes to return a unanimous verdict of guilty. As Tobin was handed his third life sentence, one of Dinah's grieving friends held up a handwritten signed to the dock that read, May all your dreams be nightmares. Dinah's half-sister, Sarah Tizard, told reporters that the family hoped to put the trial behind them and remember Dinah as the unique and inspiring daughter and sister that she was. Two memorial benches were placed in the grounds of Holy Trinity Church in Margate, one for Dinah,

On for Vicky. The girl's dads, Michael and Ian, became incredibly close friends and often visited the memorial together. After Dinah was found, Ian McNichael said that he could finally die in peace. When he passed away in 2014, his ashes were scattered in the same place as diners, and her mum Judy, in the sea off the Essex coast, near where the family used to live. And so in death, they were finally reunited. In his final years incarcerated at HMP Edinburgh, Tobin's health declined.

He suffered strokes and he had a heart attack, he needed a walking stick and was diagnosed with vascular dementia and prostate cancer, which he refused to be treated for. He even survived a razor blade attack from another inmate while sleeping in his cell, which left a 20 centimetre scar down his face and neck. I remember that. In September 2022, Tobin broke his leg in a fall and later developed pneumonia in hospital after a surgery. Peter Tobin finally met his maker on the 8th of October, age 76. And while he claimed to be a staunch Catholic all his life, we very much doubt that he was headed upstairs. After being cremated, which not really supposed to do,

Tobin's ashes remained unclaimed for a while. Dinah McNichael's brother Dan told the press, Bin them, flush them down the toilet. They were ultimately scattered anonymously at sea. Maybe they don't bury, because maybe it's a bit more expensive because you have to get a coffin and all of that, but also I guess they don't want to tell. turn it into some weird little, like, pilgrimage shrine for sickos.

Oh, totally. It's just a Catholic thing. Yeah, yeah. So with his death in 2022, Peter Tobin's official victim count rested at three. Angelica Cluck, Vicky Hamilton, and Dinah McNacal. But those involved with the case have always been sure that that's just the tip of the iceberg. The thing about Peter Tobin is, we've never really had his movements pinned down. He lived, as I said at the top of the show, a very nomadic life. moving constantly around Scotland and England,

with a pattern of laying low in close communities and institutions after offending to avoid detection. So basically, Peter Tobin had plenty of opportunities to kill even more victims that we just don't know about. An Operation Anagram uncovered at least 40 aliases, 150 cars and 38 SIM cards that he had used whilst moving around the UK, way beyond an ordinary travelling handyman's needs, that's for sure. And it wasn't just bodies that Tobin left behind.

It looked like he'd kept trophies. In 2009, Operation Anagram released photos of 32 pieces of ladies' jewellery found stashed in Tobin's homes, in the hope of finding connections with missing women. Some of the pieces carried DNA, but frustratingly, none of them matched any profiles on record. And ultimately, Peter Tobin took most of his secrets to the grave. Which brings us onto the most often speculated rumour linked to Peter Tobin. Was he Bible John, the notorious unsolved serial killer who killed three women in Glasgow in the late 60s? Now we are throwing it way, way back here, into the archives of red-handed as we covered this case in our fifth ever episode.

I remember. The case of Bible John, which you can check out if you fancy a really fucking retro red-handed case. Please don't do that. It was the first ever email complaint we got. I cried. Was it about the sound? No. It was just about standard.

How dare you talk about this in a conversational manner? Are you disgusting little girl? Oh, okay, sure. A classic. Oh, I see. Okay, okay. Never mind. So yes, if you don't want to listen to it, then don't worry.

Let me summarize the Bible John situation for you very quickly here. Between 1968 and 1969, an unknown man picked up three female revelers. At, you guessed it, last goes Barrowland Ballroom. and murdered them. 25-year-old Patricia Docker, 32-year-old Jemima MacDonald, and 29-year-old Helen Puttock. The killer's nickname comes from a taxi driver who drove with the man and his final victim in 1969,

who remembered him randomly quoting bits from the Bible. All three women were on their periods at the time of their murders, which Bible John made a point of marking with one of the victims by placing her sannoch towel under her armpit. It was speculated that menstruation was the trigger for Bible John to kill his victims, perhaps because their time of the month meant that they declined his sexual advances, or that he'd become excited by the sight of blood when he assaulted them like a dead-eyed shark, or possibly because his religious mania meant that he viewed these women to be unclean. And there are a couple of key clues that do appear to link Peter Tobin to Bible John. The first and most obvious is the whole religious angle. Peter Tobin did murder Angelica Cook in a literal church, after all.

though I would argue this religious side of things is not particularly unique to Peter Tobin. Secondly, though, you have the time and place. The Barreland Ballroom was a known haunt of Tobin's as a young man, and like we told you, he met his first wife Margaret there that same year. Thirdly, and perhaps a bit more tenuously, Margaret, Peter Tobin's first wife, later went on the record saying that her period didn't stop Peter Tobin from raping her. and if anything, the blood seemed to excite him more. But there are quite a few loose ends with that theory.

Firstly, Tobin moved from Glasgow to Brighton with his then-fiancee Margaret between the first and second Bible John murders. He got married in Brighton just 10 days before the murder of Jemima MacDonald and was still living there when Helen Puttick was killed at the end of October in 1969. Margaret wasn't aware of Tobin travelling to Scotland during this period either, and while DNA from the Bible John murders deteriorated in quality over the years due to poor storage, forensic experts from Operation Anagram were able to check Tobin's DNA against a seaman stain on Helen Puttick's tights, and they found that Tobin was not a match.

And while bite mark analysis isn't really that reliable, a bite mark on Helen's body also did not match Tobin's dental records, and he just didn't have the distinctive missing tooth described by a witness. I mind less when bite-mark evidence is used to rule people out than when it is used to rule people in. So, Peter Tobin is Bible John, which I'm sure I've said myself, doesn't look like it. No, I don't think so. And while multiple attempts to link Tobin to other unsolved cases across the country have come to nothing so far, we're going to tell you about two cases we are genuinely very suspicious about.

The first is a case of 18-year-old Louise Kay, who vanished during Tobin's seemingly inactive period in 1988 from Eastbourne in Sussex. Louise disappeared after telling friends that she planned to sleep in her car at Beachy Head. She and her car, a gold fiesta with a distinctive white door, were never seen again. Operation Anna Graham managed to unearth some interesting connections

incriminating Tobin, possibly. He was working at a nearby Eastbourne Hotel at the time and was known to have sold a small hand-painted car shortly after Louise went missing. Friends say that Louise had met a mysterious older Scottish man some weeks before. At the time Louise disappeared, Tobin owned a house on Windlesham Road in Brighton.

But unlike his other Brighton properties, this one has never been searched. In 2018, David Swindle told the press that he believes Tobin likely killed Louise Kay. And I would just very much like for them to search that house. But again, I don't know. It's such a difficult one, isn't it? Because it's a historical case, like what evidence they have to justify going in

and searching this house where presumably another family just now live. And I guess if they go in there looking for something very specific, maybe they could get like a warrant. I don't know. It's tricky. I learned this the other day. In England and Wales, they don't need a warrant. they don't need probable cause it's an American thing

really I believe so so the police can just go search anybody's house I think so let me double check yeah they can in specific circumstances but generally they need a warrant it's easier for them to do it without here than other places okay so exceptions where they're allowed to is where they believe a crime is in progress or imminent if they believe they can prevent harm

or they're in like close pursuit so if you run to a house. They can chase you in there. Police can also apparently enter to recover evidence after an arrest though. So yeah, it's a tricky, tricky situation, but I for one, and I'm sure David Swindle for one, would quite like to search that

house. And there's another Eastbourne case that bears all the hallmarks of a Tobin murder. Operation Anagram re-investigated the 1980 murder of 22-year-old Jesse Earl, whose skeleton was found concealed in Shubland on Beechy Head, nine years

after she first disappeared whilst out walking on the coastal path. When she was discovered her limbs had been tied with her own bra. Jessie had apparently expressed nervousness about a middle-aged Scottish man that she'd met whilst out walking in the same spot where her remains were later found. And Tobin was known to be living in the area at that time, possibly working as a handyman at a church in Eastbourne. And his behaviour at key moments of this case were also quite suspicious with hindsight. A few days after Jesse went missing in 1980, he suddenly checked himself into a Glasgow hospital.

An eerie mirror of his behaviour after killing Angelica Cluck in 2006. And after the body was found at Beechie Head in 1989, Tobin abruptly upstick and forced his third wife, Cathy, to move all the way up to Bathgate without any warning. But, unfortunately, Operation Anagram have been unable to definitively pin Tobin for Jesse's death. So for now, that's where we're forced to leave it, feeling pretty frustratingly unresolved. Tobin's shadow stretches over dozens of cold cases across the UK,

but only three have the forensic receipts to stick. Operation Anagram was shut down in 2011, after failing to find hard proof of Tobin's involvement in any murders beyond Angelica Clark, Vicky Hamilton, and Dynamical. But just because we can't prove that there are more victims, it doesn't mean that they don't exist. Maybe one day DNA breakthroughs will deliver new revelations And Peter Tobin's full Gospel of Horrors

Will finally be uncovered There's just gotta be more Oh yeah It's like Watts's face Gilgo Yeah, yeah There's just no way If there's one thing we know about

Violent sexually motivated serial killers They rarely just stop He could have, he could have had a break But I think the chances are Probably not And he acts like a man who's got away with everything for years. And I would be more inclined to believe that he hadn't done it

if he had a very, like, stable home life. Because I would think he doesn't move around a lot. He's got this community that he's plugged into. I know, like, BTK was like that and didn't do that. But I just think, like, we would have a surer answer, I think, for his victim range if that had been the case. But that's not the case. He moves around all the fucking time.

He's up and down all over the place. So, no, I definitely think there's more. But, yeah, chances are. we won't find out. No. But I do not think that he was Bible John. No, I don't either. No.

Which I thought I did. Yeah. And there were a couple of heavy hitters. Everybody knows Professor David Wilson and another guy called Paul Harrison, who published a book on this called The Lost British Serial Killer, closing the case on Peter Tobin, in which they do state their belief that they thought that Peter Tobin was indeed Bible John, with a lot of their sort of analyzing of the crimes, how similar they were, the evidence that they could dig up.

But since then, they have actually come up. out because that was released in 2010 and since then they have actually come out and said that they don't think that anymore good for them it's okay to change your mind absolutely absolutely so that's it guys that is the case of peter tobin if you want to know more about bible john go check our episode on him because i don't think peter tobin is it but he was he was bad enough regardless and we will see you next week for another episode goodbye goodbye To listen to shorthand every week, start your seven-day free trial with Wondry Plus, and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or in the Wondry app.

How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime. Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our time. And crimes like that, they don't just happen. We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% preventable. They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us. and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.