An author who tracked down a suspect in the Glasgow Bible John murders has suffered a blow in her bid to find the man responsible.
John Templeton was identified by Australian writer Jill Bavin-Mizzi as the possible killer of third victim Helen Puttock. She had hoped a relative would provide a DNA sample that could then be compared with the DNA found on Helen’s clothing.
However, it has emerged that Templeton, who died in Glasgow in 2015, was cremated and has no blood relatives in Scotland. She has now hired an Edinburgh private investigator to track down anyone related to him in the hopes that cops could still investigate the alleged links to the three 60s murders.
She told the Record : “The only chance of establishing if John Templeton is Bible John is through the DNA.
Head portrait of Bible John May 1980
“The DNA can only come from a living blood relative.
“I am disappointed I have not been able to trace any but I am not giving up. I am convinced that John Templeton is Bible John and that he murdered these three women.
“Their families deserve answers after all this time.”
Jill’s last hope is that Templeton has a surviving blood relative in England, but ancestry records are much harder to search than in Scotland.
She is now appealing to anyone who believes they may be related to Templeton to come forward and will be in the UK in June for more research and to meet with any relatives then.
John Templeton when he worked for Glasgow City Council in their libraries as an attendant
As part of her research the 62-year-old tracked down Templeton’s ex-wife in 2022. She provided a photograph of him that bears a strong likeness to an artist’s impression created for police.
The ex-wife also revealed that her husband was questioned by detectives six months after Helen’s murder in October 1969.
Helen Puttock
Jill traced Templeton after researching the ancestry of John McInnes, who was identified as a suspect in 1996.
The former soldier, from Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, who took his own life in 1980, had been interviewed shortly after Helen’s murder.
Patricia Docker murdered nurse
DNA obtained from Helen’s clothing bore comparisons to samples provided by two siblings. But when McInnes’s body was exhumed from Stonehouse Cemetery, 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 their family tree led her to Templeton, born in 1945.
Mima McDonald victim Bible John muder jemima McDonald
Since the book was published she has traced ancestors of both Templeton and McInnes to the village of Dundonald, Ayrshire.
Helen Puttock’s body was found in a tenement back garden in Earl Street in Scotstoun, Glasgow.
John Templeton
First victim, nurse Patricia Docker, 25, was discovered near her Langside Place home on the city’s south side in February 1968.
Jemima MacDonald, 31, was found in a derelict tenement flat in MacKeith Street in Bridgeton, Glasgow, in August 1969. All three had spent the evening in the city’s Barrowland Ballroom and were found near their homes.
Police Scotland said: “The murders of Helen Puttock, Jemima McDonald and Patricia Docker remain unresolved. As with all unresolved cases, they are subject to review and any new information about their deaths will be investigated.”
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