Did Bible John murder Helen Puttock, Jemima McDonald and Patricia Docker in Glasgow?

Patricia Docker worked long hours as an auxiliary at Mearnskirk Hospital in Newton Mearns and also had a young son Alex to look after.

She lived with her parents in Langside Place on the south of Glasgow, a short walk from Hampden Park.

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Five years earlier, Patricia had married Alexander Docker, and the following year their son had been born.

By 1968 Alex Snr was a Corporal with the Royal Air Force in Lincolnshire.

Their marriage was on the rocks and she moved back to Glasgow with young Alex to live with mum and dad.

On Thursday, February 22, 1968, Patricia had decided to have a night out and was in her best clothes.

It had been bitterly cold that day, so she had also wrapped up well in a duffel coat which had a fur collar.

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Patricia told her parents that she was going to the upmarket Majestic Ballroom in Hope Street in the city centre, But for some unknown reason, she went instead to the more downmarket Barrowland Ballroom in the city's Gallowgate, about two miles away, where they had a regular over 25s night.

Whatever the reason this 'white lie" was to have major consequences for the police murder investigation that would quickly follow.

Patricia's naked body was found on a Friday morning in Carmichael Lane, just a few hundred yards from Langside Place by a local man who kept his car in a lock-up garage there.

He was heading to work when he made the grim discovery Ligature markings around Pat's neck suggested that she had been strangled, possibly by a belt.

She had also suffered blunt force trauma to her face and head.

The victim's handbag, watch, and clothes were missing.

Her clothing was never found, although her handbag was later recovered from the River Cart.

Extensive door-to-door inquiries in the area produced a witness who recalled hearing a female scream, "Leave me alone!".

Little useful forensic evidence was discovered at the crime scene which hadn't been preserved well and had been trampled underfoot by a number of senior detectives and other police officers.

When Patricia failed to return home that evening, her parents assumed she had spent the night with a friend.

Later that day the young mother's body was formally identified by her distraught father John Wilson.

As the weeks turned into months local officers met a wall of silence in their bid to find her killer.

Unusually Patricia had gone to the dancehall on her own. Had she made a date to see someone there. A date with death?

After two weeks most of the detectives were moved to a triple murder inquiry in Govan leaving the local officers to try and tie up the loose ends before it was wound down and put into cold storage.

Patricia's parents were left to their grief and their pain.

However eighteen months a second woman's body was found in a tenement close in MacKeith Street, Bridgeton near where she lived.

This turned out to be a single mother-of-three Jemima McDonald.

She was last seen alive at the Barrowland Ballroom and had been strangled.

Officers obtained an identikit picture of the man last seen with the 32 year old and the image was released to the media - the first time such a step had been taken in a Scottish murder investigation.

No connection was made with the Patricia Docker murder even though both murdered women had been at the same dance venue.

Again the trail ran cold after a few weeks but all that would soon change.

On October 31, 1969, came the discovery of a third young woman, Helen Puttock, 29, near her home in Earl Street, Scotstoun.

She had also been had been at the Barrowland Ballroom that night and left with a mystery man Crucially Helen's sister Jean Langford had shared a taxi home with her sibling and her admirer.

She said he called himself John, was tall, had sandy short hair, his front teeth overlapped and quoted passages from the bible.

Jean was dropped off leaving Helen and the man alone.

The following morning her younger sister was found strangled three closes away from her own home.

After her death, it was decided to link all three murders into one investigation based at Partick Police Office because of their similarities and the connection with the Barrowland Ballroom.

There the man in charge of the triple probe, Detective Superintendent Joe Beattie, above, also revealed details about the biblical references adding: "I'm positive this man comes from Glasgow or nearby.

"He is aged between 25 and 30, between 5 ft 10in and 6ft tall, has light-red hair, good features, blue-grey eyes, and a smart, modern appearance.

"I do not think he is a religious man but just has a normal, intelligent working knowledge of The Bible that he likes to air.

Jeannie later worked with Lennox Paterson, deputy director of Glasgow School of Art, to create the famous artist's impression of the suspect, who had been dubbed Bible John by journalists.

Former police chief Joe Jackson worked on the Patricia Docker case and was later called into the Bible John investigation.

He says the white lie told by Patricia to her parents about going to the Majestic rather than the Barrowland created a needless hurdle in the crucial early stages and may have allowed the killer to escape.

Mr Jackson said: "That really hampered the inquiry and it was three wasted days, time which is vital in any murder investigation

"We even spoke to a man who had wrongly claimed he had danced with the victim in The Majestic."

Mr Jackson, who retired in 1992 at the rank of Detective Supt, can still recall the details of the investigation into Patricia's death He continued: "There wasn't a great deal of information from local door-to-door inquiries or at the Barrowland.

"We also spoke to local criminals and checked their alibis, particularly those with records of violence and sexual offences, but that threw up nothing.

"There were several cars in the area at the time, which were never traced.

"I believe she met her killer in the Barrowland and he took her home by car.

"At that time, the dance halls were closed by 11pm so there were few people about late at night.

"Most people would be in their beds which made tracing eyewitnesses even more difficult."

Mr Jackson travelled to several military bases in Scotland and England with Joe Beattie to interview possible suspects.

Helen Puttock's sister also accompany them on one trip to Catterick in North Yorkshire.

Mr Jackson feels that too much reliance was places on her eyewitness account of the suspect by Joe Beattie He also thinks that the investigation should have relied more on the evidence of two bouncers at the Barrowland.

They had seen the suspect with Helen Puttock and described a much shorter man.

They had also been present when he had complained loudly about losing money in a cigarette machine.

Mr Jackson added: "Their evidence did not seem to count for much with Mr Beattie.

"I don't know why even to this day.

"The fact that the suspect quoted from the bible is not particularly significant either.

"Most people at that time would have some knowledge of the scriptures as religious education was compulsory in schools.

"He was obviously trying to impress the women to make them feel comfortable in his presence.

"I think Joe Beattie later realised he had made mistake by going so public about the biblical references."

In recent years it's been suggested that serial killer Peter Tobin is Bible John or at least responsible for one of the three murders.

Tobin, 74, is serving three life terms for the murders of Angelika in 2006 and Vicky Hamilton, 15, from Bathgate, West Lothian, and Dinah McNicol, 18, from Essex, in 1991.

Mr Jackson, who put another serial killer Angus Sinclair behind bars in 1982 for sex attacks on children, immediately suspected Tobin after he was arrested for Angelika Kluk's killing at St Patricks Church in Glasgow in 2006.

He said:"After I saw his photograph for the first time, I thought, 'This is as near to Bible John as you are going to get'."

Police Scotland said they were still committed to solving the three killings.
Detective Superintendent Suzanne Chow added: "The murders of Helen Puttock, Jemima McDonald and Patricia Docker remain unresolved, however, as with all unresolved cases, they are subject to review and any new information about their deaths will be investigated."