Agony of families’ quest for justice
How a grown man still carries around the scars of being robbed as a child of his mum by Bible John, and how he is filled with anger that the killer has still not been caught
SOME of the happiest memories from my childhood were listening to my gran tell me stories about the dashing Polish officer she met during World War II, who swept her off her feet and who she later wed.
I never got to meet my grandfather – he died a mere eight years before I was born – so everything I learned about him, my family’s history, the triumphs and the tragedies, I learned from her.
As a child I was fascinated and as an adult I feel privileged and very lucky to have had that knowledge passed down but I also feel incredibly fortunate because there are no skeletons in the closet.
Nothing that is talked about in hushed tones, and any sadness we feel is because he never had the chance to tell us his own story.
This struck a chord with me earlier this week after I spoke to David Puttock, the son of Helen and George Puttock.
Helen was, of course, the third woman murdered by the killer we know as Bible John.
While I keep in regular contact with his dad, it’s the first time David and I have spoken and we talked about his mum’s death and the profound effect it’s had on his dad and family.
David spoke powerfully about his own feelings over being involved in one of Scotland’s most notorious murder cases. He was only five when Helen was so cruelly taken from him so memories of his mum are hazy and the recollections he does have are snippets of moments here and there.
Overwhelmingly, David feels angry. Angry that 52 years later there is no closure for his family, no resolution to such a catastrophic and violent loss.
He feels angry when he thinks the killer has had more attention than the women who suffered at his (or their) hands and he increasingly feels anger his dad is unlikely to see justice.
Our family history is woven into our DNA, it shapes our identities, our traditions, our cultures, values and our present lives.
For decades the Puttocks have lived with the trauma of Helen’s violent death, the wondering and hoping that one day the killer would be unmasked and face justice.
A process that would perhaps allow them to heal and move on from the events of October 1969.
A common thread I’ve discovered over the years whenever I’ve spoken to families bereaved by crime is closure is a fallacy even when the perpetrator has been caught and punished.
Life carries on but it’s never the same. How can it be when evil has touched their lives?
But for the majority who are able to see some semblance of justice and knowledge perhaps of why their loved one died, it allows a chance to end the pain and suffering they have endured.
Not so much closure but the conclusion of at least one chapter.
What then for families like the Puttocks, the MacDonalds and the Dockers and the countless other bereaved relatives of those whose killers remain undetected and unpunished?
I asked David how he felt about the fact that his own mum’s death and that of Patricia Docker and Jemima MacDonald were still in the public consciousness after so long.
His answer was poignant and I could hear the raw pain of a five-year-old boy who lost the most important person in his life and how it shaped them.
“I’m glad people are still fascinated by it. It angers me it’s all about him whoever he was but at the end of the day it means people are still remembering three women were murdered and maybe one day someone will come forward with new information.
“It means my dad might live to see justice done for his wife and me for my mum.
“She didn’t deserve what happened to her, none of us did.”