There has been a suggestion he may be Bible John. which may already be linked in the above news reports?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_John
Bible John is the nickname of an unidentified serial killer who is thought to have operated in Glasgow, Scotland, in the late 1960s. Three murders were attributed to him, but it is not clear that they were the work of the same person and officially the police still have an open mind on this.
off topic: use of the background knowledge known about Bible John was employed by crime novelist Ian Rankin in his book Black and Blue.
Clearly i need to read everything before i post as apart from the Ian Rankin mention in the above post the link to Bible John has already been mentioned. my apologies.
The Independent is amongst several news sources who have reported that this man is the same Peter Tobin who was convicted of raping and murdering Angelika Kluk a little over a year ago.
http://tinyurl.com/2ufl8d
Angelika was the young Polish student, working in Scotland for the summer, whose body was found hidden underneath the floor of a Catholic church in Glasgow. The case caused an enormous scandal, not only because of the horrific nature of the crime and the fact that she was 'buried' inside a church, but also because during the investigation both the local Catholic priest, and an older married parishioner, admitted to having sexual relations with Angelika (It was the married 'boyfriend' who initially reported her missing).
Tobin, who was also convicted of a sex attack on two girls in 1994, is was sentenced to at least 21 years for Angelika's murder.
Also re Genette- very recently the police stated that they were re-investigating Robert Black (another man convicted of sex murders of young girls) in relation to her murder. Reporting seems confused now, with some sources saying that Black (currently serving a life sentence) is still under suspicion, and others suggesting that Tobin is now a prime suspect (due to his having worked around the same time near to where she went missing).
http://tinyurl.com/2mntxd (ThisisLondon, 13 Nov)
'Senior offices said [Tobin] is not wanted over the disappearance of Genette Tate, the 13-year-old who vanished while cycling along a country lane in Devon in 1978. The Crown Prosecution Service is presently considering charging child sex killer Robert Black with her murder.'
http://tinyurl.com/33vud9
(Channel 4 News, 14 Nov)
'Although its not known which cases police think Tobin could be linked to, unsolved murders which fall within the timeframe being investigated include the disappearance in 1978 of thirteen year old Genette Tate in Devon.'
http://tinyurl.com/2ufl8d
(Independent, 15 Nov)
'As well as the search at the house in Margate, a wider investigation led by Essex police is causing a number of forces to re-open the cases. Tobin has already been charged with the disappearance of Vicky Hamilton, who went missing in the same year as Ms McNicol. Another case being revisited is that of Genette Tate, who was 13 when she was last seen in Devon in 1978.'
I really wish we could figure out a way to stop making people like this...
Btw, I'm sure you already know this, but the body found in the garden of the Margate house (apparently buried in the sandpit Tobin's son had played in when he was young) was formally identified yesterday as that of Vicky Hamilton. Vicky's father apparently 'stopped traffic' as he walked slowly in the road ahead of the prison van as Tobin was driven to court this morning.
http://tinyurl.com/3yagha
(STV Video footage and report )
My original post about Angelika Kluk's murder.
It seems that some UK news agencies are trying not to fall foul of British laws about prejudicing active court cases (Tobin had already been charged with murdering Vicky Hamilton), and some aren't. Hence the "odd" reporting behaviour and the obscuring of Tobin's face on TV.
The coverage is truly absurd. As the above post said, Tobin was all over the media this summer for the Kluk case, and past murders he committed going back to the age of 15 were well publicised. Yet just a few months later, he is referred to only as "Peter Tobin, a Scottish man", and the Kluk case is literally not allowed to be mentioned, nor are his other crimes. This morning his face was blanked out on the BBC's news coverage.
This is the second time in a month where the British media and laws have shown their utter incompatibility with the internet and mass media age. Any one of us can do a quick web search and get the full story, but the law still pretends that they can control and withhold information. The media's game of pretending that no one will remember this man or his past deeds is almost childish, and begs the question of when the laws will be reviewed.
Bravo to Vicky Hamilton's Dad who walked in front of the prison van holding Tobin today:
http://tinyurl.com/2k49pt
Let's hope that some sort of closure can now be brought to the families involved.
Heather,
Most sense I've read all year. Thank you.
Steve, where do you get the mug shots from. It brings to mind when my mother in law was on jury service. She said after 'As soon as I set eyes on him I knew he was guilty.'
The law is an ass.
Thanks TCB/UK for the explanation about the strange coverage- makes sense (and doesn't, at the same time- but that's nothing to do with your explanation!). Also thanks for the reminder and link to your earlier Angelika post. I knew you'd written about her, just thought I'd mention her in the comments for anyone who surfs in directly here since the link between Tobin and that earlier case wasn't explicit in this particular post.
Heather: I agree- it is totally absurd. In this case particularly, I don't think anyone of average intelligence would even need access to the internet to be putting two and two together fairly accurately- the Kluk case is so recent and was so shocking. Reports that Vicky has been found, and giving Tobin's full name, is enough to start ringing bells. Obscuring his face and not mentioning Angelika is just pointless- when we've got enough information and long enough memories to know its the same guy already. If you have access to the internet (as over 70% of British adults now claim they have, either at home or at work) its as easy as you say to check and confirm whatever suspicions you are already having.
Its becoming more and more obvious with every high profile case that the media 'establishment' is a creaky old dinosaur! I'm not sure how fast it will change though, I often get the impression that these days they are aware that they are not in control of information as they used to be, and that a fuller/less biased account can be found pretty easily elsewhere, but they are counting on most people being too a) disinterested b) lazy or c) happy to have things censored for them, to bother going elsewhere for their news, even though they now can. When the *majority* of people begin to look elsewhere, contradict the official version, protest about inaccurate/biased coverage- etc. etc.- then we might see more than ineffectual tinkering with regards to the law. Of course by then it'll probably be too late, so I think the powers that be must be counting on there only ever being a minority who can be bothered to think and question.
on itv news, police had a meeting last september about reopening 40 cold cases possibly connected with Tobin.
Let's hope that if he is responsible for any of them, there'll be enough evidence that they can be positively linked to him and give the families of the missing/dead some closure.
When I read the article on BBC news this morning, I instantly thought of the Wests.
In case nobody here is aware, police have just held a new conference and confirmed that they believe the second body is dinah mcnicol. They are awaiting dna results, but jewellery and other items are consitent with it being that of dinah.
Yes, Joanne. 
Second body at house of horrors 'IS missing Dinah McNichol'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages...ge_id=1770&
ct=5
After 16 years, now I can grieve,' says Dinah's father as her body is found in house of horror
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages...ge_id=1770&
ct=5
R.I.P. Dinah — justice will be coming your murderer's sorry way.
they found her body under the patio, yes it is like the fred west case.
this was an old address of tobins wasn't it? Imagine you buy a house, play in the garden and all the time theres all that underneath. Poor people who live there now...
it's like that book 'the lovely bones'
You mentioned "and past murders he committed going back to the age of 15 were well publicised"
can you link to these cases? who else has he been convicted of murdering and when / how long was his sentence?
Here are a few links, and obviously these are unpleasant and graphic reading. The past murders were documented in a paper which is not published online (several of the Scottish editions of the Sunday papers are not published online, although their English counterparts are. Believe me, this is frustrating to no end.)
http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news...78057-20092190/
http://news.scotsman.com/topics....07&
id=696132007
http://news.scotsman.com/topics....07&
id=700932007
Dan
Tobin's criminal past was publicised at the time, but it was all violence/sex offences. I don't recall reading that he'd been charged with any murders before Angelika Kluk, but I may be wrong.
Margate death house family 'horrified' at finds
In a statement read by police today, resident Nicola Downing said the discovery had turned the family’s life upside down. They have been moved to a hotel while their home is pulled apart.
"I can only describe it as a nightmare that gets worse every day. We lived in that house for 12 years and we had a happy family home," she said.
"Moving out of our family home has been traumatic. We feel enormous sympathy for Dinah's father and for what he is going through. We wanted to get the answers he needed. Since we moved out the developments have been shocking for all of us. Our hearts and thoughts go out to the families involved."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
...nmargate217.xml
I couldn't imagine the family not being horrified.
I too thought of the Wests when this story broke. Much as I hate to think it, this guy has had a lot of time on the loose and if he is responsible for a further two murders as well as the one he is already banged up for, how many more will they find at addresses he has lived at?
There's real issues for the UK to face in its criminal justice policies that consistently fail to protect women by letting loose people like this when you consider his track record.
Man, he looks like the living embodiment of the Beatles' "Mean Mr. Mustard", doesn't he? An angry, bitter, winzed whipcord of a man.
you know, the family that has had to move out, they were distressed obviously but i was assuming they owned the house. can you imagine? The value of the house would drop to zero. But fortunately for them, it was a council house swap with Tobin, I saw some of the relatives on tv and they are scottish. So i guess they will just be moved elsewhere.
Tobin earned his 14 year prison sentence in the early 90's(released after 9 years, and then went onto kill Angelika Kluk), for sexually assaulting two girls in his own home. One of them related her story yesterday in The Daily Mail...unfortunately I can't find it on their website at the moment, I think because of it's content TDM may well have not published it online. It was a very disturbing read, anyway - the injuries he inflicted on them were revolting, I don't really want to go into detail, but they were obviously the work of someone with a very deranged mind and psyche. And it's pretty obvious that if one of the girls hadn't escaped then another murder might have taken place. What amazes me is - he must've been on the Sex Offenders Register - how the eff did he manage to get a job in a church?! And why didn't police connect such a serious sexual crime with previous missing persons reports? I think we need some explanation as to why Tobin managed to kill for so long, and get away with it.
There was also a good piece in The Times yesterday about how serial killers like Tobin manage to elude police in the UK, by being drifters and having jobs that allow them to move from place to place etc. Basically we suffer from not having a central database of these sort of crimes. Unfortunately The Times search facility is down and I can't find the link to that either, but it was very interesting.
blimeyhecks
You're right: Tobin was on the Sex Offenders' Register, but the authorities lost track of him quite a while before Angelika's murder. With no one knowing where he'd gone, it was easy for him to change his name and ingratiate his way into a cash-in-hand job at the church. The system totally let Angelika down.
Some changes have been made relatively recently in an attempt to tackle the problem, such as the CEOP Centre publishing the names and photographs of sex offenders who have breached the requirements of the SOR.
Hi, TCBUK - thanks for that link, very interesting.
I saw a very brief mention - a sentence - of how the UK police are going to go into every house that Tobin ever stayed in and raze them if they must, to find other victims. It smacks to me a bit of county forces trying to clear outstanding cases, they way it was done with Henry Lee Lucas.
Yes, I think they will investigate everywhere he has lived or done building work at - whether they will need to demolish each house or not, I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if there are other bodies elsewhere.
I was thinking earlier 'Why hasn't he been linked to Milly Dowler's disappearance?' - but then I realised he must've been in prison when she was abducted? Am I right?
Not sure ...except didn't they trace saliva on cup to a church in Scotland with Millie Dowler - it's a thought, Blimey - or do you prefer Hecks? 
Hi Fiz, call me anything within reason! Just reading that...the saliva was found in Sunderland. Strangely it matched DNA found on clothes that were found in her bedroom after she disappeared.
I am arguing with some blithering idiot on AOL who is utterly convinced Tobin is being picked on - I point out that Tobin is already in jail for murder and that's why the police are talking to him - that the murder of Anglika Kluk was so vicious that crimal profilers are convinced it was not his first murder. So everyone else picks it up and runs with it and now he's being blamed by them for just about every unsolved murder in the UK (of which there are a lot). I think, and I wonder if anyone else does, that now computers are lot cheaper than they were, everyone who has one feels obliged to comment, in excrable English on absolutely everything, whether they know anything or not. Grr! Rant over!
@ fiz
that is true that as her murder (AKs) was so horrific they believe it was a progression from a first murder. It is believed that as in the cases of serial killers the killing is the first attraction for want of a better word but then once they come to terms with the fact they can kill they can then work up to killing how they really want to, if that makes sense. Basically the serial killer kills to learn he can kill then kills to live out his fantasy.
It is also true that yes as the in"twerp"web grows with the cheapness of computers it is amazing what people will say, someone actually stated perhaps Tobin was not responsible and that he was being made a scapegoat as fred west was the real killer but as he was dead it would be better to pin it on Tobin. I told them to go to the press with their story - probably should have made sure it was the Daily Sport!
I told them to go to the press with their story - probably should have made sure it was the Daily Sport!
LOL, Lynn!
How anyone could think Tobin was being made a scapegoat I have no idea. TBH, I think he should have been put away for the rest of his natural life just for the sexual assaults he committed on the two teenage girls I mentioned earlier - they were horrific.
@ Blimey
sad fact of life these days that crimes against children, babies and teens all seem to be far too leniant!!
No argument from me, Blimey and Lynn. When will life mean life? (Unless you are a bit simple Pole, called Stephan Kizcko. Have you ever seen his confession? It makes no sense and yet they still charged him, knowing he could not produce sperm and had never raped Lesley Molseed). I used, when younger, to think "Policeman are our friends!" I really have changed my opinion, purely through what I have read about police corruption ( remember the West Midlands police in the late seventies? And that was just one police area!)
Fiz, I have two words for you: 'Colin Stagg'. Look at the appalling way he was treated by the Met, who were falling over themselves to frame him for the murder of Rachel Nickell.
I know - I just mean that that was the time I caught on to just how corrupt police forces are - of course the Met need to get their house in order, and probably a lot more forces as well.
And finally Colin Stagg has been vindicated, I hope he gets a good payout from The Met - he deserves it.
You said that all of the victims were brunettes, but if I remember correctly, Angelika Kluk was a blonde. Also, I really don't understand why so many people suspect that Peter Tobin was "Bible John", because "Bible John" was supposed to have had red hair, and Peter Tobin clearly does not.
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