Mass murderer Peter Tobin is considered one of Scotland’s worst serial offenders but did his killing spree extend to Dundee?
Tobin’s sick crimes began to unravel after the disappearance of student Angelika Kluk.
Tobin, who died on Saturday at the age of 76, beat, raped and stabbed the Polish student before dumping her body underneath the floor of St Patrick’s Church.
She was still alive when he placed her there in September 2006.
Angelika, 23, was a cleaner at the Glasgow church where handyman Tobin was employed under the assumed name of Pat McLaughlin.
Police later discovered McLaughlin was actually Tobin – a registered sex offender whose life of crime began after he was sent to a reform school at the age of seven.
In his teens and early 20s he served jail terms for burglary, forgery and conspiracy, before he was convicted of the rape of two 14-year-old girls he plied with alcohol and drugs in Hampshire and sentenced to 10 years.
He was eventually caught and handed a life sentence at the High Court in Edinburgh in May 2007 after being found guilty of raping and murdering Angelika.
Tayside Police investigated Tobin
This conviction opened the floodgates on Tobin’s past.
Suspecting they were dealing with a serial killer, detectives launched a separate inquiry into Tobin’s entire life.
A UK-wide investigation, named Operation Anagram, was set up to investigate Tobin’s past and any possible link with cold cases.
The “scoping” exercise was carried out by every UK force including Tayside following the Kluk trial and had a particular focus on sex crimes and missing women.
Cold case detectives investigated whether there was a link between Tobin and the unsolved murder of Dundee teenager Carol Lannen whose body was found in Templeton Woods in 1979.
Police then searched houses where Tobin had lived. They discovered the bodies of Falkirk schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton and student Dinah McNicol in a garden in Kent.
He had abducted 15-year-old Vicky in Bathgate, West Lothian, on the evening of February 10, 1991, while she waited for a bus.
In 2008 Tobin was convicted at the High Court in Dundee of abducting, raping and killing Vicky and given a life sentence.
During his trial in Dundee, Tobin showed no emotion, except once.
As a smutty video was played in evidence, he stood up and leaned over to get a better look.
The jury were horrified.
They took less than two-and-a-half hours to find him guilty.
Tobin received a life sentence with a minimum term of 30 years.
Cold case detectives investigating the murder of Carol Lannen in Dundee in 1979 decided against interviewing him following his conviction.
The Evening Telegraph reported that Tobin had been “looked at” by the team and the statement suggested there was no evidence to suggest he was Carol’s killer.
A spokesman for Tayside Police said: “It would be wholly inappropriate for us to name any one individual in connection with a murder investigation.
“Where any new information comes to light in relation to the murder of Carol Lannen, it will be examined and assessed appropriately.”
Who murdered Carol Lannen?
Murder is either one of the easiest or most difficult crimes to solve.
Police had little to go on when Carol’s body was found.
The 18-year-old had been picked up by the driver of a red Ford Cortina on the corner of Exchange Street and Commercial Street in what was then Dundee’s red light district at 7.50pm on March 20 1979.
Her naked and strangled body was found the following afternoon in Templeton Woods on the outskirts of the city.
The fact that it had been snowing hampered the massive police operation which swung into action. Forensic specialists had difficulty taking casts of footprints and tyre tracks and other possible evidence melted away as they worked.
The absence of Carol’s clothing and handbag also meant the loss of other possible clues.
Police in Dundee later issued a description of the Cortina driver.
Eleven days after the discovery of the body, and with the inquiry going nowhere, events took an unexpected turn. Carol’s handbag and some of her clothing were found 85 miles away on the banks of the River Don near Kintore in Aberdeenshire.
No longer was it assumed that the killer was probably local.
Despite the breakthrough of the bag and clothing being found and the tracking down of so many red Ford Cortina owners, the inquiry began to peter out and the number of officers in the murder squad was gradually scaled down.
Eleven months later, on Tuesday, February 26 1980, the city was plunged into further shock when the body of Elizabeth McCabe was found naked and strangled in the same area, prompting the largest criminal investigation in the history of Tayside Police.
Although the idea of a single killer became less certain in the weeks ahead as new information came in, the two deaths have become forever known as the Templeton Woods murders.
Yorkshire Ripper investigation
Many theories have been advanced making a case for separate murderers and there have been as many claiming it was the work of the same man.
The case went cold for a quarter of a century.
The murders were then included in an investigation into possible Yorkshire Ripper attacks in Scotland in 1996 by then West Yorkshire Police chief Keith Hellawell.
World’s End monster Angus Sinclair and the infamous American Zodiac Killer have all at one time been listed as possible suspects alongside the Yorkshire Ripper.
All were discounted.
In 2004, Scottish police forces launched Operation Trinity where a number of cold cases were re-opened and evidence re-checked using up to date DNA analysis.
Former taxi driver Vincent Simpson was arrested by police 27 years after they had first questioned him and stood trial for Elizabeth’s murder at the High Court in Edinburgh.
A jury returned a not guilty verdict on Simpson in December 2007.
No one, save the killer or killers, knows for sure who killed Carol Lannen and Elizabeth McCabe and the mystery may never be solved.
As for Tobin, officers believe he will have killed others and he had at least 40 aliases and 150 cars during his life to cover his tracks as he targeted vulnerable women.
Following his 2008 conviction for Vicky’s murder, the police acknowledged they were not pursuing any active leads in relation to the death of Elizabeth with regards Tobin.
A year later, Tobin was convicted of the murder of Dinah McNicol, who he picked up when she was hitchhiking home to Essex after a music festival.
Dinah and Vicky’s families got some closure.
With the advances in DNA and forensics in the past 40 years, many have thought there would be a similar result in the unsolved murder cases of Carol and Elizabeth.
As the years pass this is one manhunt which may never have an ending.
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