Glasgow Crime Stories: The murder of Angelika Kluk and killer Peter Tobin

It was a long enough period for Strathclyde Police to officially declare the 23-year-old a missing person.

The languages student from Gdansk University had spent her summer working in Glasgow to fund her studies and had been staying at St Patrick's Church in the city's Anderston area since July.

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There she lived rent-free in a room in the chapel house in return for carrying out cleaning duties.

Angelika was no stranger to Glasgow as it was her second summer vacationing in the city.

She had been due to return to university in Poland in early October and was last seen at around 2pm on the Sunday.

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Her anxious sister, Aneta, 28, who worked as a secretary in Glasgow, made a public appeal two days later for help in tracing her sibling.

She said her father, family and friends were devastated by the disappearance.

Posters featuring a picture of the missing student were out up across the city centre in shops and bars.

What concerned police most was that all Angelika's most personal possessions had been left in her room at the church.

They included her money, passport, clothes, laptop computer and flight tickets home.

Her mobile phone had been switched off and all calls are being diverted to her voicemail.

Angela was described to police as a very conscientious and responsible person who would never disappear without informing friends and family. It seemed she had simply disappeared into thin air.

However, the investigation took a dramatic turn towards the end of that same week.

Detectives discovered that Angelika had spent part of the Sunday afternoon helping church handyman Pat McLaughlin paint a garage.

However McLaughlin had hidden his true identity from the trusting student and the parish priest.

His real name was Peter Tobin who had been jailed in 1994 for raping and sexually assaulted two 14 year old girls in Havant, Hampshire.

After his release from prison in 2004 he had adopted the Pat McLaughlin alias.

Tobin had spent the previous six weeks working as an unpaid handyman at St Patrick's. Police had spoken to him as part of the initial investigation into Angelika's disappearance, not realising his true identity.

He had been introduced to St Patrick's through the Loaves and Fishes street charity, which helped homeless people.

Tobin had volunteered to carry out some odd jobs and told volunteers he had been married and had three grown-up children.

Detectives issued a photograph of Pat McLaughlin who was now on the run and warned that he was a risk to the public.

At the time Father Gerry Nugent, who was the priest at St Patrick's, spoke of the decision to hire Tobin.

He said: "I thought by helping out around the church he was trying to make life better for himself.

"He never asked for a penny, but I used to slip him a few bob for cigarettes now and then."

The officer in charge of the investigation Detective Superintendent David Swindle decided to carry out a second more detailed search of the church.

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On the Friday of that week Angelika's body was found hidden below a small wooden hatch in the floor of the church, close to the confessional. Her hands were tied and she was covered by a tarpaulin.

She had suffered a "very violent death", with multiple stab wounds to the head and body.

A nation-wide hunt was launched for Tobin and he was discovered a few days later in a London hospital.

When Tobin was arrested he was wearing a T-shirt which had stains linking him to Angelika's murder. DNA found on the victim's body and fingerprints on the tarpaulin were also a positive match for him.

By this time a more detailed picture had also emerged of Tobin's background and history.

Three times married he had been born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire and later lived in Bathgate, West Lothian, Margate, Kent, and then Havant with his various wives and children After his release from prison in 2004, he returned north to Paisley.

As Tobin was on the sex offenders'register he was supposed to keep the authorities up to date with his whereabouts. He initially checked in with police and notified them of two changes of address.

But Tobin could not remain out of trouble for long.

In October 2005 he was accused of attacking a 24 year old woman with a knife in a flat in Brown Street, Paisley.

The following month a warrant was issued for his arrest - but by this time he had gone to ground.

Less than a year later he would show up at St Patrick's with tragic consequences.

In March 2007 Tobin stood trial at the High Court in Edinburgh and found guilty six weeks later of raping and murdering Angelika.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of twenty-one years.

During sentencing the trial Judge Lord Menzies told Tobin "In the course of my time in the law I have seen many bad men and I have heard evidence about many terrible crimes which have been committed but I have heard no case more tragic, more terrible than this one.

"Any case of rape is serious. Any case of murder is serious. But what you did to Angelika Kluk was inhuman."

Angelika's sister shouted 'thank you' to the jurors after they delivered their verdict.

In a statement released through Strathclyde Police, she later said: "My father and I are relieved that the man responsible for Angelika's death is now likely to spend the rest of his days behind bars.

"We would both like to thank all of the Scottish public for their support during this horrific time."

At the time Detective Supt Swindle praised Ms Kluk's family for their handling of the ordeal. adding:"I sincerely hope that they can now start to rebuild their lives and feel that justice has been done."

In an unusual twist to the case the priest who had befriended both victim and killer was later given 100 hours city service after being found guilty of contempt of court when giving evidence at Tobin's trial.

Father Nugent died in 2010 having resigned from his post at St Patrick's three years earlier.

Following Tobin's arrest, Strathclyde Police launched Operation Anagram to trace his movements over the previous 40 years and his possible involvement in other unsolved murders.

In June 2007, Tobin's old house in Bathgate was searched in connection with the disappearance of 15-year-old local schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, who had gone missing on February 10, 1991.

Another former home in Margate was searched and the bodies of Vicky Hamilton and a second missing woman Dinah McNicol found in the garden.

In December 2008, Tobin was convicted of Vicky's murder at the High Court in Dundee where he was given a second life sentence.

Dinah Nicol was just 18 when she was last seen on August 5, 1991, leaving a music festival in Liphook in Hampshire.

She accepted a lift from Tobin and was never seen again.

In December 2009 at Chelmsford Crown Court Tobin was found guilty of Dinah's murder and given a third life sentence.

Tobin was now officially a serial killer.

By 2010 Operation Anagram had narrowed their investigation down to nine unsolved murders and disappearances.

However it was wound down in June 2011, having failed to identify any more victims.

Tobin is currently in Saughton Prison in Edinburgh where he was said to be reclusive and rarely ventured out his cell.

Over the years there have been claims the 74 year old is also the notoriously elusive killer dubbed Bible John.

Patricia Docker, Jemima McDonald and Helen Puttock were all murdered after spending the evening in the Barrowand Ballroom in Glasgow in the Kate 1960s.

There are similarities between photographs of Tobin from that time and a photofit issued by police of Bible John in 1969.

Tobin is also known to have left Glasgow shortly after the murders ended.

Criminologist Professor David Wilson has said he could be the notorious bible quoting killer.

The Scot first became interested in Tobin after he was convicted of murdering Angelika, 14 years ago In an interview in 2019, the academic said: "Peter Tobin absolutely killed some of the women in the Bible John sequence.

"The only doubt is if he killed all three."