He was known only as “Bible John.” He was one of the UK’s most notorious serial killers. He has been likened to Britain’s own Jack the Ripper and America’s Zodiac Killer – and like those two, he has never been caught, and his true identity remains a mystery to this day.

It all started over 50 years ago with the brutal murder of Patricia Docker, a pretty young Scottish mother. At the time that police found her body, they did not know they had discovered the first victim of series of heinous murders that would be attributed to “Bible John.”

The year was 1968. Docker’s lifeless body was found naked in an alleyway on the south side of the city of Glasgow. She had been beaten, raped, and strangled. Over the next 18 months, police found two other women viciously murdered in the same area in a similar manner. They knew by then that they had a serial killer on the loose.

Over a half-century later, the murders which shocked all of Scotland remain unsolved.

The first victim, Patty Docker, was discovered on February 23, 1968, in the Battlefield area by a man on his way to work. She was only a few hundred yards from her home, where she was presumably on her way to after a night out. The 25-year-old Docker had decided she was going to “the dancing” at the Majestic Ballroom downtown. She had left her son with a babysitter. Apparently, at some point, she changed her mind, and instead of the Majestic, she chose to go to the Barrowland Ballroom, which was on the “seedier” side of town. It was there that she met up with her killer.

Detective Joe Jackson believed she met her killer at the Barrowland and was murdered in a car and then dumped. According to the Daily Record, only her shoes were found near her body. Her dress, coat, and bag were later found in a river.

As the town recoiled in terror, Docker’s killer remained at large, when 18 months later, another body turned up. This time it was  Glasgow mother-of-three Jemima McDonald, 32. McDonald’s remains were discovered by children in a derelict tenement building in MacKeith Street, Bridgeton.

She had also been raped, beaten, and strangled. It was now August 16, 1969, and like Patricia, Jemima had gone to the Barrowland Ballroom the night before her body was found. She was seen leaving with a man described as tall and slim with light hair, wearing a blue suit.

While she was the victim of sexual assault, in contrast to Patricia, Jemima’s body was fully clothed. Her autopsy revealed that she was on her period at the time of the attack.

Just two-and-a-half months later, on Halloween 1969, a third woman was murdered in similar circumstances. This time it was Helen Puttock, a 29-year-old mother, who was found in the backcourt of a tenement in Earl Street, in the Scotstoun area.

She had lived just yards away along the same street, and like Docker, was savagely beaten, raped, and killed, within sight of the safety of her own home!

Each of the three victims was married, each had been at the same dance hall – the Barrowland Ballroom – each had been spending the night away from their regular partner, each had been menstruating, each was strangled and sexually assaulted. The brutal yet detailed commonalities of the crimes led police to quickly acknowledge the existence of a serial killer on the streets of Glasgow, at first in private, then publicly under the twin pressures of the press and public fear.

Puttock’s sister became a key witness in the crimes. She had been in a taxi with Helen the night before she was killed, presumably with the killer of her sister and the two other women. Jean was dropped off safely at home first, while Helen continued on to meet her horrible fate at the hands of the unassuming man they had met at the dance hall.

Jean gave the police a description of the killer as sandy-haired, about 6 ft, and possessing a severe overbite. Jean said the man said his name was “John,” and she thought he said his last name was “Templeton” or “Simpleton,” but she did to recall exactly. She also noted that it was odd that during the cab ride, he had been quoting Bible verses. Thus the UK tabloids dubbed him “Bible John.”  An artist’s impression was produced. A bite mark was found on Helen’s body which confirmed he had an overlapping front tooth.

The killings provoked the country’s largest-ever manhunt, as well as countless suspects, books, documentaries, earnest speculation, pub theorizing, and bouts of urban myth-making about “Bible John.”  

Several theories as to the true identity of Bible John have arisen over the years. The two most popular are that the Bible John murders were the work of convicted serial killer Peter Tobin, who is serving life for the murders of three other women, or a member of the Glasgow police force – who remains on duty to this day!

But despite these theories, and the one about Tobin being fairly credible, Bible John remains a British Zodiac killer and real-life whodunnit without a tidy conclusion, then or now.

The Glasgow police have said that despite the passing of over a half-century, all three cold cases remain subject to review and that anyone with any new information should bring it to their attention.