Bible John suspect boasted after being interviewed by police about third murder victim

A Bible John suspect boasted to work colleagues how he was interviewed twice by police about the murder of the third victim. John Templeton was also nicknamed “Bible John” by fellow workers at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library because of his resemblance to the artist’s impression of the serial killer.

Templeton, who died in 2015, worked as an attendant for Glasgow City Council in their libraries after leaving his job as a typesetter in a printing firm. He was named as the alleged killer of third victim Helen Puttock in a book published in June by author Jill Bavin-Mizzi.

Jill is also convinced he murdered two others linked to Bible John - Patricia Docker and Jemima MacDonald. All three had attended the Barrowland Ballroom on the nights they died.

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A number of ex-colleagues of Templeton contacted Jill after reading her book. One first met Templeton in 2001 in Possilpark Library as an attendant and then later in the Mitchell around 2006. She said: “He was a charming, chatty man, always smiling but condescending and superior and I didn’t like that. He appeared to enjoy disparaging me and others.”

He was also a regular visitor to the Spiritualist Church on Berkeley Street. The ex-colleague said Templeton had a speech impediment which may be significant. Helen’s sister Jean Langford told police a man who shared a taxi with them called himself Templeton or Semperson.

The former colleague wonders if the sister misheard him. She added: “John Templeton would sometimes say the letter ‘r’ as ‘w’, and ‘t’ as ‘s’. I remembered this when reading of the man in the taxi giving his name.”

The former colleague did not discover Templeton’s link with Bible John until a Sunday Mail article in June about the new book. Then she learned Templeton’s fellow attendants had called him Bible John because of his resemblance to the artist’s impression.

She added: “He apparently also boasted that he had been questioned twice by police as a person of interest. I am not sure why he did that. Perhaps he wanted people to think he had been cleared as a suspect.”

The former colleague also remembers Templeton having a gap in his teeth – similar to the stranger described by Jean. She added: “It never crossed my mind he was Bible John though I was familiar with the story. When we saw the photograph on the front of the Sunday Mail we realised it was the John Templeton we had worked with. We were gobsmacked. It was the talk of the building.”

A second Mitchell Library colleague said Templeton was also called Bible John. Jill, 62, tracked down Templeton’s ex in 2022. She provided a photo that bears a strong likeness to the artist’s impression created by George Lennox Paterson.

Jill traced Templeton after researching the ancestry of John McInnes, identified as a suspect in 1996. The ex-soldier, from Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, who killed himself in 1980, had been quizzed after Helen’s murder. DNA since obtained from her clothing bore comparisons to samples given by two siblings.

But when McInnes’s body was exhumed, there was no conclusive match. This led Jill to question if the person who left the DNA may have some other connection to McInnes. An examination of the family tree led her to Templeton, born in 1945.

A police spokesperson said: “The murders of Helen, Jemima and Patricia remain unresolved, however, as with all unresolved cases, they are subject to review and any new information will be investigated.”

Bible John: A New Suspect by Jill Bavin-Mizzi was published in April and went on sale in June when we revealed its contents.

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