Claims made in BBC Bible John podcast investigated by police

Police are investigating new claims made about three unsolved murders in Scotland following a new podcast about Bible John.

The podcast, Bible John: Creation of the Serial Killer, looked into the 1960s murders of Helen Puttock, Jemima McDonald and Patricia Docker.

All three were killed after a night out at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom.

Ms Puttock died in 1969 after a man shared a taxi home with her and quoted a religious verse.

Serial killer Bible John is believed to have murdered three young women after meeting them at the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, Scotland, between 1968 and 1969.

The BBC podcast which was released in 2022 claimed the identity of the man in the taxi was “covered up” by top police chiefs, and alleged that evidence pointed to the man being John Irvine McInnes, who was the cousin of a senior police officer.

However, there is no evidence that Mr McInnes, who killed himself in 1980, was the murderer.

Detectives working at the time of the murder claimed in the podcast that their investigation found enough evidence that Mr McInnes, was the man in the taxi with her and that the procurator fiscal would have issued a warrant for his arrest if he had been alive.

However, they believed that senior police chief Joe Beattie, who led the inquiry, had kept his name out of the investigation because he was good friends with the suspect’s cousin Jimmy McInnes.

In a 1995 review of the case, Mr McInnes’ body was exhumed so that a DNA sample could be tested against the evidence found on Ms Puttock’s tights, however the results were inconclusive and Mr McInnes was formally cleared of any involvement.

The 1995 detectives told the podcast they were still certain he was the man in the taxi, who everyone had believed was Bible John.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We are assessing the contents of a recent podcast in consultation with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

“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.”