Serial killer Peter Tobin dies, aged 76

Scottish serial killer Peter Tobin has died in jail, aged 76.

A statement from Scottish Prisons says the infamous murderer died in hospital after falling unwell.

Tobin was serving a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. In addition to these three murders, police believe Tobin is responsible for the deaths of other young women and girls.

Tobin’s Crimes

Prior to his first murder conviction, Tobin served ten years in prison for a double rape committed in 1993, following which he was released in 2004.

Three years after his release, he was sentenced to life with a minimum of twenty-one years for the rape and murder of Angelika Kluk in Glasgow in 2006.

Remains of two teenagers who went missing in 1991 were subsequently found at his former home in Margate, Kent.

Tobin was convicted of the murder of Vicky Hamilton in December 2008, resulting in his minimum sentence being increased to thirty years, and of the murder of Dinah McNicol in December 2009, resulting in a whole life order.

Murder of Angelika Kluk

In September 2006, Tobin was working as a church handyman at St Patrick's Church in Anderston, Glasgow. He had assumed the name of Pat McLaughlin to avoid detection, as he was still on the Violent and Sex Offender Register following his 1994 convictions for rape and assault.

An arrest warrant had been issued for Tobin in November 2005 after he moved from Paisley without notifying the police, but he was not discovered until he became a suspect in Angelika Kluk's murder at the church. In May 2007, he received a further thirty-month sentence for breaching the terms of the register.

Kluk, a 23-year-old student from Poland, was staying at the presbytery of St Patrick's Church, where she worked as a cleaner to help finance her Scandinavian studies course at the University of Gdańsk.

She was last seen alive in the company of Tobin on 24 September 2006, and is thought to have been attacked by him in the garage attached to the presbytery. Kluk was beaten, raped and stabbed, and her body was concealed in an underground chamber beneath the floor near the confessional in the church. Forensic evidence suggested that she was still alive when she was placed under the floorboards. Police found her body on 29 September, and Tobin was arrested in London shortly afterwards. He had been admitted to hospital under a false name, and with a fictitious complaint.

A six-week trial resulted from the evidence gathered under the supervision of Detective Superintendent David Swindle of Strathclyde Police, and took place at the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, between 23 March and 4 May 2007.

Tobin was found guilty of raping and murdering Kluk and in sentencing Tobin, Judge Lord Menzies described him as "an evil man".

Bible John theories

Tobin's convictions led to speculation in the late 2000s that he was Bible John, a serial killer who murdered three young women in Glasgow in the 1960s. There are similarities between photographs of Tobin from that era and the photofit artist's impression of Bible John, and Tobin had moved from Glasgow in August 1969, the same year as the killings officially ended.

Although DNA had been used to rule out a previous suspect, detectives believe a DNA link to Tobin is unlikely due to a deterioration of the samples through poor storage.

Operation Anagram found that Tobin was in Brighton at the time of the final two Bible John murders. He had married his first wife in Brighton on 6 August 1969, 10 days before Bible John's 16 August murder of Jemima McDonald, as recorded on their marriage certificate.

Tobin's wife has also testified that the pair were still on their honeymoon in Brighton at the time of the murder of the second victim, and she insists he was with her at the time. Tobin was also in police custody regarding an unrelated crime when another of the killings occurred.

‘No evidence’ to link Tobin to Bible John

He was also still living in Brighton at the time of the third murder, meaning he would have had to travel without his wife's knowledge to Glasgow and back from Brighton to have committed the murder of Helen Puttock, Bible John's third victim.

Tobin's DNA was checked against the semen sample for Bible John as part of Operation Anagram. The results of this analysis conclusively proved the bodily fluid was not sourced from Tobin. The doubts surrounding the DNA evidence notwithstanding, the police also have a record of the bite mark that was found on Helen Puttock's body which they can cross-check with Tobin's dental records, as had been done with John McInnes when he was exhumed and subsequently eliminated as a suspect in 1996. Also, contemporary photos of Tobin showed he did not have red hair like Bible John was described to have had.

David Swindle, the senior investigating officer in charge of Operation Anagram, has stated that there is no evidence to link Tobin to the Bible John murders, and Operation Anagram eventually discounted the theory. Swindle had previously presided over the 2002 review of the Bible John murders, four years before the initial discoveries of Tobin's murders.

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