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Authors: David Leslie
Tags: True Crime
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her own theory about who Bible John could be. One suggestion that probably deserved further examination was the idea that the killer was a schizophrenic, suffering from a mental illness that can lead to swingeing changes in a victim’s personality. Some believe a major cause is childhood abuse, a subject not given the concentration in the 1960s that it is now. There have been countless examples where schizophrenics have murdered, their victims ranging from total strangers to the closest family members.
What those who worked with the mentally disturbed would discuss privately were the references to Bible John quoting religious passages. Many schizophrenics appear to have an obsession with the Bible, often almost to the extent of allowing biblical sayings to become the rules that direct their actions. To a schizophrenic, ‘an eye for an eye’ can mean just that. Was Bible John abused as a youngster, in the sense that he was forced to study the Bible until it warped his thinking and caused his brain to direct his actions away from what is looked on as normal behaviour? Certainly schizophrenia would account for what seems to have been the remarkable changes in the character of Bible John, first behaving with immense charm, then brutally and bloodily slaughtering his victims, then vanishing into oblivion, or was it back into respectability?
It is possible this was an ordinary man from the outskirts of Glasgow who chatted happily over the garden fence with his neighbours at weekends, took his wife and children on family holidays to the west coast, had friendly arguments about football with his workmates and went to church on Sundays, then for no clear reason he would suddenly snap and murder in cold blood. A feature of schizophrenia is that outbursts are rare and it may have been that only the man’s closest family were aware of his condition. Families will often put themselves at great risk to protect loved ones from being unmasked as criminals. In the case of Bible John, it is a distinct possibility that those around him suspected he was the killer but decided to stay silent rather than face the undoubted shame and humiliation of being associated with a murderous madman.
They would not be alone in making mistakes. It was suggested that a man questioned several times and arrested for rape was found to have a Bible in his car, smoked the same cigarettes as Bible John and had a close relative who had once had a hole-in-one at golf. He was known to have mental problems, but there was not enough evidence against him.
Neither the extensive and intensive dragnet nor a £200 reward succeeded in producing an arrest, although the detectives did say after interviewing a distraught Jeannie that they would like to speak with a man from Castlemilk – ‘Castlemilk John’, the fourth passenger in the taxi who had hopped out almost as soon as it set off. In light of his sharing the same Christian name as the prime suspect, it was hardly likely he would come forward. The odds of him returning to the Barrowland, or any other dance hall, for that matter, in the foreseeable future were remote indeed. But the significance of Castlemilk was not lost on the folks living on McKeith and Landressy streets. Someone motoring from the Barras – or more likely going on foot, as the car population was not as prolific then as it is now – and heading for Castlemilk would very probably pass through their area. A man seeking a prostitute, for instance. Or simply seeking a woman; any woman.
As Hannah Martin, aged 20, read the newspaper reports and headlines about the man everyone was calling Bible John, her mind flashed back to the incident three years earlier that might have happened on London Road, certainly near to it. She wondered about the stranger who had come so close to killing her. She remembered the biblical saying but, hard as she tried, could not recall the exact words.
But then Hannah had other things on her mind.
SEVEN
THE
What those who worked with the mentally disturbed would discuss privately were the references to Bible John quoting religious passages. Many schizophrenics appear to have an obsession with the Bible, often almost to the extent of allowing biblical sayings to become the rules that direct their actions. To a schizophrenic, ‘an eye for an eye’ can mean just that. Was Bible John abused as a youngster, in the sense that he was forced to study the Bible until it warped his thinking and caused his brain to direct his actions away from what is looked on as normal behaviour? Certainly schizophrenia would account for what seems to have been the remarkable changes in the character of Bible John, first behaving with immense charm, then brutally and bloodily slaughtering his victims, then vanishing into oblivion, or was it back into respectability?
It is possible this was an ordinary man from the outskirts of Glasgow who chatted happily over the garden fence with his neighbours at weekends, took his wife and children on family holidays to the west coast, had friendly arguments about football with his workmates and went to church on Sundays, then for no clear reason he would suddenly snap and murder in cold blood. A feature of schizophrenia is that outbursts are rare and it may have been that only the man’s closest family were aware of his condition. Families will often put themselves at great risk to protect loved ones from being unmasked as criminals. In the case of Bible John, it is a distinct possibility that those around him suspected he was the killer but decided to stay silent rather than face the undoubted shame and humiliation of being associated with a murderous madman.
They would not be alone in making mistakes. It was suggested that a man questioned several times and arrested for rape was found to have a Bible in his car, smoked the same cigarettes as Bible John and had a close relative who had once had a hole-in-one at golf. He was known to have mental problems, but there was not enough evidence against him.
Neither the extensive and intensive dragnet nor a £200 reward succeeded in producing an arrest, although the detectives did say after interviewing a distraught Jeannie that they would like to speak with a man from Castlemilk – ‘Castlemilk John’, the fourth passenger in the taxi who had hopped out almost as soon as it set off. In light of his sharing the same Christian name as the prime suspect, it was hardly likely he would come forward. The odds of him returning to the Barrowland, or any other dance hall, for that matter, in the foreseeable future were remote indeed. But the significance of Castlemilk was not lost on the folks living on McKeith and Landressy streets. Someone motoring from the Barras – or more likely going on foot, as the car population was not as prolific then as it is now – and heading for Castlemilk would very probably pass through their area. A man seeking a prostitute, for instance. Or simply seeking a woman; any woman.
As Hannah Martin, aged 20, read the newspaper reports and headlines about the man everyone was calling Bible John, her mind flashed back to the incident three years earlier that might have happened on London Road, certainly near to it. She wondered about the stranger who had come so close to killing her. She remembered the biblical saying but, hard as she tried, could not recall the exact words.
But then Hannah had other things on her mind.
SEVEN
THE